


Tell me I'm not going home, and I'll stop waiting by the phone

by phlebotinxm



Series: Fitzsimmons AU [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Sweethearts, F/M, Happy Endings are Important, How Do I Tag, Hurt Leo Fitz, I Don't Even Know, Non SHIELD AU, Post-Break Up, and he's great, there's a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phlebotinxm/pseuds/phlebotinxm
Summary: Jemma Simmons is to get married. She's got her dream job in New York, a best friend she adores, a lovely fiancé and an overall perfect life.The only problem? She has to convince her ex-husband to sign their divorce, and he refuses to send her the papers back to America.Which is how Jemma finds herself stuck in her lovely (but incredibly tiny) cottage in Perthshire during a storm, with a husband she never thought she'd see again.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Series: Fitzsimmons AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2030545
Comments: 92
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello there!! 
> 
> I'm back with a little (she says) something that my dear friend nick came up with in passing. we got to talk about it together which was honestly 80% of the fun in the whole process, and I wrote the first two chapters in one go. so thank you nick, for putting up with me (once more) and giving me the best ideas that I absolutely adore writing! you're a gem, and I'll honestly fight you --even though i'd probably lose-- if you think otherwise.
> 
> I'd like to thank stephanie (@/eclecticmuse! I don't know how to insert a link but please go check her amazing works if you didn't already!!) for being so kind and offering me to beta read this whole thing. 
> 
> this story will be three chapters long, and I will certainly post once a week (or maybe upon 2 weeks, I haven't decided yet because the third chapter is still in writing!), so I hope you will like it! 
> 
> don't hesitate to let me know your thoughts if you feel like it! xx

Jemma glared at her watch for the third time in ten minutes, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth in annoyance. Her trip from America had been exhausting. After spending 8 hours on a plane, squeezed between a snoring middle-aged man and a teenager who’d kept watching flashing videos when she’d tried to sleep, she was now stuck at the Glasgow train station. She was frozen on her feet, alone in the middle of the dropoff zone, and her soon-to-be-ex-husband was nowhere in sight. 

The train ride from the London airport to Glasgow had been uneventful enough for her to catch some well deserved sleep, but she also hadn’t realized it was running a little late until she’d missed her second train. Which had left her no choice but to call the person she was dreading to see after almost three years, the person she was now waiting for in the middle of the train station during lunch time. He hadn’t been too keen on making the half-hour drive from Perthshire to get her, but no matter what had happened between the two of them, Jemma knew he would never leave her like this. 

A little less than half an hour later, Jemma finally heard the sound of a familiar engine approaching the train station, and she looked up with a sigh of relief. Without surprise, Fitz’s car was still the same after all this time. She couldn’t believe he’d kept this piece of junk. She remembered the first time he’d laid eyes on this car so many years ago, back when they were both students struggling to even afford something that barely drove them from one point to another, and how he’d practically begged her to let him have it. She had known back then that he would be able to work on it and make it work, which saved them a shit load of money, but she’d never imagined he would keep it all this time. 

“You took your sweet time,” was the first thing that slipped past Jemma’s lips when Fitz walked out of the car, his blue eyes falling on her. 

She could see the exact moment his demeanor changed. His shoulders tensed, and his eyes grew a little colder. “Well, I’m sorry. I had to drive half an hour to get here, it wasn’t exactly planned, now was it?” 

Jemma felt goosebumps erupt all over her arms at the sound of his voice. It felt like a lifetime since she’d last heard his thick Scottish brogue, and it felt like a weird throwback to a time she usually pushed back to the farthest corner of her mind. 

“Well, sorry to be such an inconvenience,” she sassed back, getting up. Her knees creaked, her body sore from the time she’d spent sitting on the concrete. 

Fitz pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers. She recognized the gesture too well, and Jemma felt a flare of annoyance at the motion. 

“Let me grab your bags, at least.” 

Jemma Simmons was proud, but she was also positively exhausted, and she was definitely not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She didn’t say a thing as Fitz packed her bags in the trunk, slipping in the passenger seat with a sigh. This weekend promised to be as exhausting as she’d imagined it. 

Without surprise, the ride back to the small city of Dunblane was tense and silent. It felt weird, to be back in the same orbit as someone she’d once spent so much time with but who was basically a stranger to her now. Fitz and Jemma used to be  _ Fitz and Jemma _ , inseparable since they’d met in school at 16. Two young prodigies who’d bonded over how they didn’t fit in, who became inseparable and stayed by each other’s sides the whole damn way through high school, and then eventually college. By the time they’d turned 20, Jemma had been convinced that she wanted to spend her entire life with Fitz. She was pretty sure he felt the same, and so did their respective families and friends. No one talked about Fitz or Jemma anymore, they were Fitzsimmons, and no one was surprised when they got married by the time they were 25. 

Jemma wasn’t ashamed to admit that her years as Fitz’s wife had been amongst the happiest of her life. She’d heard about so many unhappy marriages during her childhood, and she’d always been surprised by it. Marriage was a dream, or at least had been, until the moment it wasn’t anymore. One moment Jemma was the happiest woman in the world, and the next she was offered her dream job on the other side of the world, and found herself facing a wall. She’d never thought Fitz of all people would be the one holding her back, but there he stood, unmoving and unwilling to follow her. It had broken her heart, to know that the man she considered the love of her life was willing to let her go at the slightest inconvenience. And a few weeks after, she was off to New York, flying away from Scotland with a broken heart and a shattered trust. 

It hadn’t occurred to neither Fitz or Jemma that they hadn’t taken the time to properly divorce before she flew off to the other side of the world. Which was the reason why she was sitting in his car at this very moment. 

Three years had passed, many things had occurred, and Jemma was finally ready to move on. Her wonderful boyfriend Will Daniels had proposed to her a couple months back, and it was only then that Jemma had realized that she’d actually never gotten divorced from her childhood sweetheart. A few texts to a number she thought she’d never once more contact and a couple of plane tickets after, there she was, back in Scotland in the place where it had all started. Fitz had refused to sign the papers without her being there, and she’d given in and flown back to get things settled. Her wedding planning was already much more late than she would have liked, and if giving in to one of Fitz’s tantrums meant speeding things up, Jemma was nearly ready to do anything. 

“The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can grab a hotel and stay there for the night,” Jemma eventually said, breaking the silence. Her words sliced through the heavy tension in the car, and she could feel Fitz stiffen besides her. “I’ll visit my parents in London tomorrow I think, anyway.” 

“Yeah, okay. Didn’t know you were in such a hurry to get divorced. You didn’t even set foot in the house, relax, will ya?” 

Jemma barely refrained herself from making yet another cynical comment. She’d always known Fitz to be a grumpy Scot, much to his peers’ frustration, but he had never before directed his grumpiness towards her. She supposed it was fair, now that they weren’t affiliated anymore. 

“I thought we were on relatively good terms?” she eventually bit back. 

Fitz scoffed. “Whatever you say, Jemma.”

“I can’t believe you.” She turned her head around, glaring at him. His eyes were stuck to the road ahead of them, but she knew him well enough to know that all of his focus was on her. “You were the one who was more than happy to let me go, as if you couldn’t get rid of me early enough. Don’t you come here and act all mighty.” 

The muscle under Fitz’s jaw twitched. 

“Of course you’d say that, wouldn’t you? From where I’m standing, you were the one who was so eager to go and leave your old life behind. It was only fair to ditch the husband and find yourself a brand new one overseas.” 

Jemma bit the inside of her lip until she tasted blood. “I’m not gonna bother replying to that.” 

“Fine.” 

They fell silent once more, the both of them sulking in their own corner. Fitz turned on the radio, and Jemma turned to face the window, enjoying the beautiful sight of the Scottish scenery. She had to admit she’d missed the country, and her heart ached a little bit as she laid eyes on the vast expanse of trees and grass. New York just wasn’t the same, and no matter how much she loved the city, it never felt quite like the place she’d grown up in. Jemma tried to ignore how her stomach turned when she realized that no matter how much time had passed, Scotland was still the thing she considered closest to a home. 

When the first familiar buildings in Dunblane appeared, Jemma couldn’t help but smile. She’d missed the typical architecture of the city, and she’d missed its people even more. New York was different, no one really paid attention to their neighbors or anyone else but themselves really, and sometimes Jemma ached to sense the familiar nosines of her next door neighbors. She’d been annoyed back then, when she was young and thought her privacy was the most important thing she could have asked for. Now, she missed the gentle curiosity from their old neighbors, their wrinkled eyes and kind smiles. 

As Fitz drove by the town house, Jemma was taken back to a time when she and Fitz had walked out of there hand in hand, newly married. She remembered the rice thrown at her, and how it had caught in her hair. That night, as Fitz had undressed her with urgency, rice had covered the soft carpeting at their feet and she remembered the sound of her laugh clear as day, as it was muffled by Fitz’s urgent lips. Those memories felt like a lifetime ago now.

Dark, angry clouds were gathering in the sky, and Jemma shivered in anticipation. She definitely hadn’t missed the typical Scottish weather, that was for sure. On the radio, the newest pop hit gave way to a weather forecast, advising them of a storm coming before the end of the day. Jemma paid it no mind. It wasn’t unusual for the area, and it would probably pour down with rain for a few hours before the sun was high in the sky again. 

Soon enough, they were pulling into their old cottage. Jemma couldn’t help but stare for an idle moment as Fitz grabbed her handbag, the sound of the truck closing making her jump. 

“Front door’s open.” Fitz grumbled. 

No matter how much she wanted to say something about safety, Jemma kept quiet. The cottage was isolated enough from the rest of the town to have its own privacy anyway. 

The front door creaked just like she remembered, and she toed off her shoes as soon as she stepped inside the cottage. The smell was the same as in her memories as well, and Jemma’s mouth went a little dry.

“I’m gonna make a cuppa.” Fitz said as soon as he walked inside behind her, closing the door and putting her bag on the floor. “You know where everything is.” 

He disappeared inside the kitchen, leaving Jemma to her own thoughts. As she looked around the place, she was hit with how familiar everything looked. Nothing had changed much, apart from a few decorations here and there that she hadn’t seen before. Essentially, though, everything remained precisely the same as the day she’d left without looking back. Helping herself, she went to the loo before walking back to the living room. 

“A splash of milk, no sugar?” 

Fitz’s voice startled her a little. “Yeah,” she replied, managing a smile. “Thanks.” 

She turned back to her silent contemplation of the living room. Much like the rest of what she’d seen of the house, it was pretty much the same as in her memories. The only missing piece was the couch, now replaced by a comfy looking armchair. Jemma had no idea why she felt her heart squeeze a little uncomfortably in her chest knowing that Fitz had gotten rid of their couch. It had been the first thing they’d bought for their new home with their first ever paycheck, and it had probably been way too expensive for what they earned back then. But they’d decided on a comfy red couch, which looked a little out of place in their old student flat. Jemma remembered vividly all the moments they’d spent on said couch, from the frequent evenings during which they’d lazed around kissing like teenagers instead of working on their upcoming exams to the times when they’d fallen asleep on top of each other in front of the tv. 

“There you go.” Fitz interrupted her, setting her cup of tea on the kitchen island. “I’ll gather the papers.” 

He disappeared upstairs, the wooden stairs creaking under each of his steps and throwing Jemma back a few years, when the sound had been so familiar she could recognize which of their family members walked upstairs. 

“Thanks, I’ll be out of your hair soon enough,” Jemma said when he came back, disposing the papers in between them. 

“Yeah, whatever.”

He hadn’t met her gaze yet, and Jemma was surprised to realize that she missed it. His blue eyes had always been curiously expressive, and it felt like he was totally shutting the door to his thoughts. As selfish as it was, she missed it. 

“You got rid of the couch?” Jemma asked. 

Fitz frowned, eyes still stubbornly fixed on the divorce papers. “Yeah, I did. Didn’t find any use for it anymore.”

It felt like there was more to the story, but Jemma didn’t push. 

“Alright.”

“Why do you care, anyway?” He asked, looking up for the first time.

His blue eyes were cold, and Jemma didn’t remember ever seeing such an icy gaze directed towards her. She realized that the man in front of her wasn’t the same she’d left behind, and she was faced with the fact that Fitz was basically a stranger to her now.

“Don’t be like this, Fitz.” 

“Don’t be like what? Realistic?” 

Jemma scoffed. “I didn’t come here to fight.” 

“Seems like you can’t help it anyway, can you?” He bit back. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your papers signed soon enough.” 

She shook her head. “None of this would be happening if you’d agreed on sending them back to me in New York, you know?” 

“Yeah? Well, sorry for thinking I deserve a little bit more respect. You liked me enough to marry me once upon a time, you could make the effort to come back for the divorce. After all, you’re the one who left, anyway.”

Jemma felt her blood boil. “You’re an asshole,” she spat, getting up and leaving the room. Her fingers twitched with the need to hit something, and she realized that she needed a distraction, fast. 

* * *

As she stormed outside of the house, Jemma immediately shivered at the sensation of the ice cold wind wrapping itself around her body. She was down to her socks and didn’t have a coat, but Jemma Simmons wasn’t considered pigheaded for nothing. Refusing to turn back, she walked towards the little back garden, gritting her teeth at the feeling of the cold tiles of the pathway under her thin socks. The weather was getting much worse than what she’d initially thought, and Jemma had to spit back strands of her hair as she sat on the little bench right behind the house. She was already regretting her outburst, but she wasn’t feeling like heading back inside at the moment. 

Wrapping her arms around herself, Jemma sighed. She’d known coming back was a bad idea, but she didn’t exactly have a choice anyway. Fitz could be as pigheaded as she was sometimes, and she remembered a time when she used to love it. She had to admit that he wasn’t exactly wrong in asking for her to come back and sign the documents face to face, either. Their relationship deserved that at least, no matter how badly it had turned out in the end. 

A movement from the corner of her eye caught Jemma’s eyes, and she turned around warily. It was only when she laid eyes on the object of her curiosity that her lips spread into a grin. 

“Hephaestus!” She exclaimed, dropping to her knees in front of the bench. 

The grey cat immediately paddled towards her, rubbing his head against her outstretched fingers lazily.

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” Jemma whispered, blinking back some tears gathering on her eyelashes. The cold wind and the turmoil of emotions was a little bit much for her, and she started sobbing as soon as the cat mewled in content, soft fur incredibly warm under her cold fingers. “Have you missed me too, baby?” 

Back when they were barely out of the Academy, Fitz had found a starving kitten in a box behind the restaurant he worked at one night. The next thing they knew, they had a new cat, and the little furry thing took up most of the room in their bed and usually woke them up with a tail on their mouth and a mouthful of cat hair. They’d decided to name him Hephaestus because of Fitz’s love for engineering, and the fact that he barely ever left his arms when Fitz was home, something that Jemma found incredibly amusing.  _ “I can’t really blame him now can I?”  _ she’d asked Fitz one night as they lay in bed, Hephaestus squeezed tight between their two mostly naked bodies. 

Jemma shook the memories away, wiping her treacherous tears with the back of her hand. Sometimes, it was a little hard to remember exactly why she’d left. But then, she remembered how happy her job in New York made her, and she valiantly tried to ignore the knot at the bottom of her stomach.

Hephaestus seemed delighted to be petted, and soon enough Jemma was able to lift him up in her arms and curl her body protectively around the cat, stealing as much warmth as she could from the contact. The dark angry clouds in the sky seemed more menacing than ever, and she realized after a few minutes that she could now hear thunder rumbling in the distance. 

“Shit,” she groaned, jumping to her feet the moment the first drops of rain hit the grey tiles of the garden. 

Luckily for both Jemma and Hephaestus, the worst of the rain came right after she’d closed the door behind them, walking back inside the house. The familiar sound of the rain hitting the windows and the roof of the house made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside, a sensation she hadn’t felt in a long time. The rain didn’t feel quite the same in New York, and neither did the city when it was covered in clouds. 

“Jemma?” Fitz asked from the kitchen, walking towards her in quick strides. His face was twisted with worry, and it eased a little when he laid eyes on her and Hephaestus, safely back inside. “I have bad news.” 

“Let me guess, it’s about the storm outside.” Jemma deadpanned. 

Fitz’s mouth twitched into an apologetic smile. “Yeah, uh… Turns out they’re advising everyone to stay inside, and taking the car is out of the question.” 

Jemma bit back a snarky comment. No matter how much they’d fight about it if she did, Fitz wasn’t responsible for the weather outside. A quick glance through the window told her that the storm outside was only getting worse, and there was no way either of them could drive to town under such conditions. She wasn’t even sure there would be rooms in any of the hotels anyway.

“Alright,” she sighed, the cat in her arms preventing her from pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. “How are we gonna do? You got rid of the couch, and it’s not like the cottage is big enough for me to sleep anywhere else.”

Fitz seemed to realize where she was going with her thoughts all at once, his face paling as he looked around the living-room in near panic. “Fuck,” he gritted. “Fuck, fuck. I didn’t think about it that way. Fuck, Jemma, I’m sorry. I never planned—”

“Fitz, stop! I know. I know you wouldn’t… it’s not like you can control the weather anyway.” 

She took a deep breath, looking down at Hephaestus. The cat blinked back slowly at her, unphased. 

“I’m gonna take the floor or something,” Jemma eventually said. “I can… it’s alright.” 

“What? No!” Fitz seemed scandalized at the idea, mouth half opened in outrage. “You’re not sleeping on the floor. I’ll just sleep on my chair.” 

Jemma sighed. “Fitz, your back will kill you in the morning. You work on heavy machines, you can’t afford to have back pains.” 

“Well, seems like we’re stuck like this then, because I’m not letting you sleep on the floor. Jemma, you might wanna divorce me but I’m not about to let my future ex-wife sleep on the fucking floor. I’m not an animal, my mum raised me better than this and you of all people know it.” 

Jemma couldn’t hold back her smile at the mention of Maggie Fitz. From the moment they had met, she’d always been the closest thing to a surrogate mother to her. Jemma never had a proper relationship with her mother, the both of them probably too similar to get along very well. Her mother had always wanted her to be a nurse, something Jemma never took interest in, and her disappointment in her daughter’s life choices always slipped through every conversation they ever had. Maggie had never been like this, though. 

From the moment she met Fitz, she’d met his mother. Back when they were achingly shy 16-year-olds still dancing around each other, Jemma spent an awful lot of time at the Fitzes. She’d learned pretty quickly that Fitz had grown up without his dad, a violent drunk who’d walked out of his and his mum’s life when he was 9 years old, and left Maggie to raise her son on her own. Maggie had always been extremely welcoming, kind and caring but not too curious or overbearing, and Fitz’s bond with his mum had always been one of Jemma’s favorite things about him. She could still picture Maggie’s happy tears when she’d caught them kissing in Fitz’s childhood bedroom, so used to barging in whenever she felt like it as they usually studied for hours without paying her any attention. She could also remember her rib crushing hug on their wedding day, when Jemma had asked for her help to tie up the back of her dress. When she’d walked down the aisle in her cheap cream-coloured wedding dress, Maggie had sobbed just as much as her dad. 

A few days before she’d left Scotland for New York, Jemma had cried all the way to Maggie’s house to bid her a final farewell. She hadn’t mentioned leaving, because it wasn’t her place to do so and she knew Fitz would probably want to announce their separation himself, but Maggie had seemed to understand her distress. Confused but never too curious, she’d held her as she cried and stroked her hair one last time, like she used to do when she was just a teenager looking for her place in the world. For months, she and Maggie still texted regularly. And eventually, life got in the way, and it became too painful to talk to the mother of the man she used to love so deeply it physically hurt. She let time take care of the rest, washing away every single interaction until there wasn’t none anymore. 

“Yeah, I know.” Jemma replied, her voice a little tight. Hephaestus wriggled a little in her hold, and she let him jump away. 

Fitz seemed to know exactly where her thoughts had gone for a minute, his features softening a little.

“Maybe we can share the bed?” He eventually asked. “Not… I know it’s not ideal, but it’s a big bed. We’d be able to sleep without touching, and it would solve this entire issue.” 

Jemma knew that he was logically right. Sharing a bed would solve the issue, and it wasn’t like it would be the first time. Yet she still felt her stomach twist uncomfortably at the idea, her mind drifting towards Will immediately. “Yeah,” she exhaled. “Okay. I don’t think we have a choice anyway, do we?”

Fitz’s grimace told her that he was probably feeling as comfortable as she did with the idea. 

* * *

_ “Hey babe! How’s Scotland?”  _

Jemma wrinkled her nose a little bit at the pet name, looking at her reflection through the bathroom mirror in front of her. The vanity unit looked desperately empty compared to a time when she lived there, even though she’d been surprised to find a few more products than Fitz’s usual. Now that he was sporting a small beard, something he definitely didn’t the last time she saw him, he’d added a few shaving creams and aftershaves to his hygiene products collection.

“It’s fine,” she replied evenly, frowning a little as she grabbed Fitz’s new perfume, bringing it to her nose out of curiosity. It smelled different from his old one, but definitely not  _ bad _ different. “How’s New York?” 

Will sighed.  _ “Busy as hell. I’ve had meetings all day, and it’s not even noon yet. I’m exhausted. So, how’s it going with the ex? Did he sign the papers yet?”  _

Putting down the bottle of perfume, Jemma felt her stomach twist a little at Will’s tone. She knew that logically, there was no reason why Will would like Fitz even though they’d never met, but she still felt a little protective when it came to her ex husband in front of her fiancé. “It’s going fine. He hasn’t signed them yet, we had a bit of a fight. But we’re gonna talk about it tonight over dinner. He’s cooking right now.” 

There was a silence at the other end of the call.  _ “You’re still at his house? I thought you’d taken a hotel room somewhere.”  _

Will’s voice was even, but Jemma could hear the slight irritation behind his words.

“There was a storm,” she countered immediately. “I couldn’t go back to town, so he offered to let me stay. It’s not like either of us had any choice, anyway. You can check the meteo, it’s pretty bad.” 

She had no idea why she suddenly felt this defensive, biting the inside of her lip nervously. The woman staring back at her through the mirror looked exhausted, and Jemma turned her back to the sink. 

_ “Okay,”  _ Will said eventually.  _ “Listen, I gotta go. Tell me when he’s signed them, yeah? Bye, Jemma.”  _

When he hung up, Jemma realized with a slight flicker of annoyance that he didn’t even bother worrying about the storm she currently found herself in the middle of. Sighing, she turned back towards the sink to get some water on her face, washing away her dark thoughts. She was on edge, had been since she landed really, and her shower had been well deserved. Fitz had decided to prepare dinner while she showered, and Jemma had realized that some of her old stuff was still in the bathroom, such as her old bathrobe. Fitz’s face had turned crimson when she’d pointed it out, and Jemma had to push back the weird feeling at the bottom of her stomach at the idea of other women using her stuff. 

Sparing one last glance at her reflection, Jemma grimaced. Without makeup to hide her dark circles, she looked absolutely knackered. Her hair was a bit of a mess, but she didn’t feel like digging in her bags to find her brush. She felt weird enough having a suitcase in her soon to be ex-husband’s bedroom, the last thing she wanted was to get her stuff all around his room. Making sure she hadn’t left anything on the sink besides her toothbrush and toothpaste, she headed back in the living-room. She tried not to think about the fact that she’d realized she and Fitz had kept the same colour pattern for their toothbrush —pink for him, blue for hers, as a private joke between the two of them— as she walked down the stairs, clearing her throat as she slipped behind Fitz. 

“Hey,” he said, putting down two plates on the central island. “It’s almost ready. I made spag-bol, your favorite.”

And there it was again, the fleeting feeling at the bottom of her stomach. Jemma forced herself to smile, trying to remember the last time she and Will had even had spaghetti. Will always liked to eat fancy things she didn’t know how to cook, and after trying several times and begging his mother for recipes, she’d just gotten used to ordering in. 

“Thank you.” 

As he sat with her, filing both their plates, Jemma averted her gaze. 

“I’m sorry if I—” 

“I’m sorry I was an arse earlier.”

They both shut up at once, staring at each other in surprise. Against Jemma’s better judgement, she felt her lips stretch into a smile. “Well, thank you for admitting it,” she said, taking a bite out of her food. 

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” 

His grumpiness had no bite this time, and Jemma couldn’t help but chuckle around her mouthful. For a little moment, it felt almost good to be there again with Fitz, sitting down in their living room eating their favorite meal. In the kitchen, Hephaestus was eating his own food, and Jemma was sure that if she closed her eyes, she could probably convince herself that she was 25 again, newly married and so incredibly happy. 

“What are you thinking about?” Fitz asked, breaking the silence that had stretched between them. 

_ You _ , Jemma wanted to say.  _ Us, and a time when we were happy _ . Instead, she simply shook her head. “Nothing important.” 

“Alright.”

His tone was hard, and Jemma felt her entire body tense up as a response. “What is it with you and being a dick anyway?” she shot back, the metal of her fork cluttering against the plate as she let it slip from her fingers. “We’re both in a pretty awkward position here—”

“Oh yeah? Like I hadn’t noticed!” 

“—and you act like I’m the one who’s to be blamed here. I didn’t ask for this, okay?” Jemma clenched her fists, her blood boiling in anger. “So please stop trying to make me feel like shit. I get it, you were happy to see me leave. Well, turns out you will be just as excited when I leave with those fucking papers tomorrow morning.” 

In lieu of a reply, Fitz simply got up silently. His hands were trembling, something Jemma had never seen happen even during their heaviest fights. He left the room in quick strides, heading towards the stairs without looking back at her. When she eventually heard the door to his bedroom close, Jemma let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. 

“Fuck!” she whispered, feeling tears gather at the corner of her eyes. Hephaestus chose this precise moment to walk by, licking his whiskers slowly. “It was never meant to be like that,” Jemma justified herself to her old cat, feeling like he was judging her as he turned his head around and stretched on the carpet. 

It took Jemma twenty minutes to be able to move, dragging herself out of her chair to clear the table and put the rest of the food in the fridge. She turned off the lights in the living-room and made sure the front door was closed correctly —an old habit she couldn’t quite shake— before heading upstairs. 

When she found herself in front of the bedroom door, Jemma took a deep, shaky breath before knocking gently and walking inside. As expected, Fitz was in bed, his back turned to the door. Just like when they used to share a bed, he’d left the side nearest to the bathroom free, and turned on the light on her side. It could have felt domestic, if the knot in her stomach wasn’t currently twisting Jemma’s insides. A quick trip to the attached bathroom later, Jemma finally slid inside the covers, as far away as she could from Fitz. 

She knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t sleeping, his breathing irregular and his body far too tense to pretend otherwise. Fitz had always been a heavy sleeper, but he’d never been a really good actor. 

Outside, both the rain and thunder echoed around the house, luring Jemma into a restful sleep. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, tell me about your fiancé.” 
> 
> Jemma looked up from her cup of tea in surprise. “Will?”
> 
> Fitz’s eyes danced with mirth as he smiled, amused. “Well, unless you’ve got another one, yeah.” 
> 
> “Very funny.” 
> 
> It was, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again!!  
> I'm back with the second chapter of this angst filled story, and I hope you won't hate me too much for this. I promised a happy ending, so try not to resent me too much until then...?  
> thank you so much for all your kudos and comment on the first chapter, I'm so glad you liked this little thing so far!
> 
> once again, thank you so much to @/eclecticmuse for her corrections and input. she got rid of all my grammar mistakes, which means she's a real hero. I'm so grateful for your help!
> 
> and of course, a big thank you to my dear friend nick, who came up with most of the brilliant ideas for this fanfic. you're an absolute genuis (and don't make me get the knife emoji once more, accept the compliment!). 
> 
> the gorgeous art at the end of the chapter is from captainironnerd on tumblr!! go check her amazing works!! 
> 
> I hope you'll like this chapter, and don't hesitate to tell me what you thought about it! xx

The first thing Jemma realized when she woke up was how warm she felt. It had been a while since she’d last woken up this content, and for a moment Jemma allowed herself to enjoy it. The covers were heavy but not suffocating, and the familiar scent of Fitz filled her nostrils. As soon as the thought registered to her sleep induced brain though, Jemma tensed under the covers. Blinking her eyes opened, she took in her surroundings with a few flexes of her toes and a good look down at her body. To her utter relief, Fitz had stayed on his side of the bed. He’d always been a bit clingy at night, something that she used to love back when he spooned her every night, his warm breath caressing the back of her neck. But in this particular situation, Fitz had stayed on his side of the bed, which made their current predicament much less awkward if Jemma was honest with herself. 

He had turned towards her in his sleep, hands folded under his pillow as if to prevent himself from reaching out to her. His mouth was slightly open as he breathed in and out deeply, and Jemma took a few moments to truly look at him, something she hadn’t been able to do since she’d arrived in Scotland. He’d changed, physically, and it was the first time Jemma was hit with how _much_ exactly. She’d noticed the thick stubble on his face as soon as he’d stepped out of the car at the train station, but as he laid there sleeping peacefully, Jemma couldn’t take her eyes off it. It framed his jaw perfectly, making him look a little older than the last time they’d seen each other, and Jemma had to physically restrain herself not to reach out and touch it. It looked incredibly soft, and she knew for a fact thanks to the several toiletries items in the bathroom that it probably was to the touch, too. His blonde curls were a tiny bit longer than what she remembered, too, and slightly darker. His eyes were closed, but she could remember the deep blue color of his pupils and how much she used to gaze upon them every day. 

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Jemma let her eyes wander down the swell of Fitz’s body. It was mostly hidden under the covers, but his left arm as well as most of his shoulder peeked out of it. His arm was firm and muscular, and his shoulder broader than how they’d been before. She had no idea if he’d taken on exercising in his spare time, but Jemma felt herself shiver at the sight.

As soon as she did though, she jumped out of bed, feeling her entire body recoil in horror. There was no way she’d just thought about Fitz that way, not after everything they’d been through, not after they’d finally decided to finalize their divorce. The proximity and their fight from the night before had probably been the last straw, and now her sleep-induced brain acted like everything that happened in the last 3 years didn’t mean a single thing to her. 

Walking downstairs after a quick trip to the bathroom, Jemma took the time to pet Hephaestus as he lazily stretched on the armchair before putting some water to boil. The teas were still in the same cupboard, and she was pleased to see that Fitz had kept the same tastes. She couldn’t properly start a day without her Earl Grey. In the fridge, she found some soy milk as well as everything she needed to make pancakes, which is what she started next. Knowing Fitz, he’d be up soon enough from the smell alone, and they could go back to talking about the divorce. As one pancake took form, and then another, Jemma got lost in her thoughts once more. 

A quick check to her phone had told her that she had no missing messages from Will, something that had made her heart ache a little in her chest. After their conversation from the day before, she’d expected him to worry a little more about her. But her notification center stayed empty, and Jemma stubbornly refused to make the first step. After all, she was busy trying to get her incredibly stubborn Scottish husband to sign her divorce papers. If anyone needed to make the first move when it came to her current relationship, it wasn’t her. With a sigh, Jemma turned on the little radio right next to the sink, the one Fitz had taken apart and built again from the scratch not long before they’d moved here. 

The news didn’t brighten her mood in the slightest, though. The storm was still raging, something she’d tried to ignore since she’d woken up no matter how hard it had been with the creaking of the house and the loud sounds of the wind. The weather wouldn’t improve until the next day at least, and Jemma felt her heart squeeze uncomfortably in her chest at the idea of staying here with Fitz for one more day. If they didn’t manage to communicate properly, it was destined to be a nightmare. 

“Hey.” A familiar voice said from behind her, and Jemma turned around to face Fitz. He looked like he’d barely slept, big bags stretching underneath his eyes, and he also looked a little lost. 

“Good morning,” Jemma replied, “I’ve made pancakes.”

“Yeah. Uh, I can see that. Why?”

Jemma frowned. “Because I remember you liked them. Sit, I’m almost done with the last one.” 

Fitz sat in silence, and neither of them mentioned the fact that when she did use to make pancakes, it was often on very special occasions. When she’d finished the last one, setting the warm pan in the sink for it to cool down, Jemma grabbed a couple of plates and cutlery to set them on the table. She made sure to grab the jam, maple syrup and sugar she could find in the cupboard, feeling Fitz’s eyes on her as she moved around the kitchen, and finally sat down with him. When she realized he wasn’t about to make the first move and they were simply hovering awkwardly in silence, she pushed the plate towards the middle of the table. 

“Did you sleep well?” Fitz asked warily, looking between her and the pancakes. Jemma knew he was probably holding himself back, his stomach rumbling loudly enough for her to hear, and for whatever reason it made her smile. 

“I did, actually. Thank you.” 

Fitz finally gave up, catching one pancake quite awkwardly with the tip of his fork and setting it on his plate. When he poured what looked like half of the syrup bottle on it, Jemma bit the inside of her lip not to say anything. It wasn’t her place anymore. 

“So,” Fitz said as soon as he’d swallowed half of the pancake in one go, “I guess you wanna talk about the papers again.” 

Jemma grimaced. “I wasn’t about to bring it up _now_ ,” she said, cutting a little piece of hers. “I just wanted to tell you… well. I might be stuck here for a little while.” 

At Fitz’s bewildered expression, she rushed to explain herself. “I was listening to the radio before you woke up, and the storm is supposed to keep going until tomorrow morning. I’m afraid I’m gonna have to stay here a little longer than planned.” 

Fitz hummed around his pancake. Jemma couldn’t exactly decipher his expression, and she found the entire thing exhilarating as she waited for his reply. 

“Okay.”

“Okay?” she exhaled. “I mean… you don’t mind?” 

He stared at her for a handful of seconds. “Jemma… You’re my wife. Ex-wife, or soon to be anyways. I know… I know you left, but I’ll never put you in a dangerous or unsafe position. You’re welcome here for as long as you need, okay?” 

Jemma felt her cheeks heat under his gaze. Fitz had always been a very heartfelt person, and she knew he meant every single word he’d just told her. 

“Thank you,” she replied quietly. She paused then, unsure as if she could continue. Their conversation this morning was pretty pleasant, and she didn’t want to step into bad territory. But at the same time, there were a few things she needed to tell Fitz, and she knew she’d probably never have the chance if she didn’t at this very moment. “I didn’t…” she started, clearing her throat when he looked up at her. “You keep saying that I left, Fitz, and… You know I wouldn’t have gone alone if only you’d followed me that day, right? If you’d… If you had fought for us. But you simply… You simply watched me go and never even asked me to stay, and never even once considered coming with me. Not once. I felt… I felt like my heart was breaking into a tiny billion pieces.” 

Fitz’s face fell. “Jemma,” he whispered, putting down his fork shakily. “I never meant… I never meant to make you feel like you didn’t matter to me. It’s important for you to know that.”

“But then why, Fitz? Why didn’t you fight for us? We could have moved to the U.S. together. You’re brilliant, and you know you could have found a job in no time in New York. We both know it.” 

“Jemma—“ 

“No,” she interrupted him, feeling tears prickle her eyes. “You don’t get to run away from this conversation, not again. I— we were ready to have a family, Fitz. We were talking about children, and about starting a whole new life together. And you blew it all away. It’s been three years, and I still don’t… I still don’t know why. I think I deserve an explanation.” 

Fitz’s eyes were equally shiny as they bore into hers, and Jemma had forgotten how blue they could get whenever he got emotional. She was taken back to all of those times he’d looked up at her with tears of joy in his eyes, a smile stretching his lips as he caught her by the waist and made her spin around in delight. Those times were long gone now, and those people too. 

“I never meant to make you feel like you didn’t matter to me,” Fitz said finally, his tone pleading. “You have to believe me. If there’s anything you gotta believe out of all of this… it’s this, Jemma. Please.”

“But why, then?” 

Fitz pursed his lips. He seemed to consider it for a moment, before his gaze fell down on his plate and he exhaled shakily. “When you got that job opportunity… I did look at jobs in New York. Scotland is my home, but I knew it was your dream job and you couldn’t pass it up. Not that I ever wanted you to, either. I know how important science is for you and I’d never come between that. That’s how it had always been between us, right?” 

In a daze, Jemma nodded. She knew, because they’d talked about it multiple times before, from high school to the Academy. Which was why it hurt so much, that he’d made her choose between her career and their relationship. 

“Thing is, before I could tell my mum about it, she called me one night. I don’t… I don’t remember where you were exactly, this night was kind of a daze to be perfectly honest. I was happy she’d called me first, so that I could tell her all about it but…” Fitz stopped, biting his lower lip until it looked like he could draw blood. “She told me she’d just found out she had breast cancer, and the doctor wanted to act as fast as possible.” 

“Fitz,” Jemma breathed out. “Oh my god, why didn’t you—” 

“She asked me not to tell you,” Fitz explained, a single tear sliding down his cheek. “I’d told her all about us thinking about starting a family, and she begged me not to tell you. She didn’t want to stress you out, not until they found out more about her state. I didn’t have the heart to tell you that you were planning on leaving, and I couldn’t follow you. I had to be there for her, you know?” He was practically begging her to understand with his eyes, but Jemma couldn’t move. She was frozen on the spot, her entire life crashing down in a few sentences. “That day you left… you think I was being distant because I couldn’t face your decision, but I was just so worried about my mum. I needed to wrap my mind around it, you know? And the day you left, I drove her to the doctor. She kept asking me about you, about our plans for the future and this baby we planned, and I knew you wouldn’t be here anymore when I drove home. I couldn’t stop crying, and she thought it was because of her surgery. Well, it kind of was, too, I guess it was all a mix of things really.” 

Clearing his throat, Fitz wiped out the tears that had escaped his eyes quickly. 

“Which is why it’s important that you know it wasn’t… It had nothing to do with you, Jemma. I wanted to follow you so badly, but I couldn’t leave my mum behind. And by the time you’d left, you hated me enough as it was.”

Jemma shook her head. “Fitz, I never… I didn’t hate you. You should have told me that, why didn’t you tell me?” She sniffed loudly, blinking away her own tears. “Oh my God, you mum? Is she—” 

“She’s okay. Turns out everything worked out as they planned, which was a huge relief. I don’t know how I could have dealt otherwise.” 

A huge weight disappeared from Jemma’s chest. “Good, oh, God, Fitz… I had no idea, I’m just…” 

She buried her face in her hands, letting out a loud sob. Three years’ worth of beliefs had just come crashing down on her, and it all suddenly felt like a bad fever dream. If only the Fitzes hadn’t been so pigheaded, if only she’d realized that her husband’s blank stares were worrying, if only she’d put her pride to the side and asked him why he tossed and turned as much at night before she left... Jemma felt like her heart had been torn into pieces in her chest. 

“I thought… I thought you didn’t want to fight for us anymore,” she whispered in her hands. “I thought you didn’t love me enough to follow me, and I thought you used that opportunity to get rid of me.” 

When she looked up, Fitz’s face was contorted in anguish. “Never,” he whispered. “Jemma, you were… you will always be the love of my life. And I know I made a mistake not telling you, trust me, I know. I thought my mum was going to kill me with her bare hands when I finally told her you’d gone away, and why I didn’t hold you back. I swear, Jemma, had she been a wee bit better, she would have taken the first flight to New York. She begged me to call for weeks, until I finally gave up.” 

“And I didn’t reply,” Jemma finished for him. “I remember that day. For the first time in over two months, I was having a day when I thought I could go a whole afternoon without thinking about you. And then you called, and I just couldn’t reply. Oh, Fitz, I should have…” 

“It’s alright,” Fitz replied quickly, shaking his head. He’d schooled his features back into a neutral expression, one that she’d become familiar with from the day before. “It’s in the past now, anyway. You made a name for yourself in New York, as I knew you would. I’m happy for you, Jemma, really.”

The pancake in Jemma’s mouth suddenly felt like ashes, and she tried to smile valiantly as she pushed her plate back, all appetite lost. 

* * *

“So, tell me about your fiancé.” 

Jemma looked up from her cup of tea in surprise. “Will?”

Fitz’s eyes danced with mirth as he smiled, amused. “Well, unless you’ve got another one, yeah.” 

“Very funny.” 

It was, though. She was barely able to repress a smile at his childish expression, oh so proud of his bad joke. They’d finished eating their breakfast in silence, both too caught up in their own thoughts to really communicate. After Jemma had done the dishes and Fitz had dried them —something they used to do, before— they’d gotten back to the kitchen island to finish their now cold teas and sign the divorce papers. Jemma had no idea why the pen felt so heavy in her hand as she’d signed at the bottom of the page while Fitz put the now clean dishes back in the cupboard, and she’d simply pushed the stack of papers in front of Fitz when he’d walked back towards her. 

“I just… well, if you wanna hear about it.” she said simply, wrinkling her nose a little. “What do you wanna know?” 

Fitz shrugged, a little awkwardly. “I don’t know. What does he do? How did you two meet? Normal stuff, I guess?”

He was playing with the pen she’d used to sign the divorce papers, and Jemma recognized his nervous gesture as one she’d seen multiple times before. She remembered it well from a time when they’d stood in the notary’s office when it had been time for them to buy this very house they’d been standing in, or from a time they’d had this nerve wracking conversation about children. 

“He’s working for NASA,” she said eventually, finding herself unable to meet his eyes as she talked about the other man in her life. It felt weird to talk about Will with Fitz. She knew him, even knew him better than anyone else in the world it would seem, and she knew he was asking for her sake more than anything else. “He’s not exactly an astronaut, you know, he works for them from a distance.”

Fitz made a face. “That’s… impressive.” 

“Yeah, well. He’s an impressive man.” 

Jemma saw Fitz wriggle a bit in his chair, clearly uncomfortable. She wanted to tell him he didn’t need to, and they could just sign the papers and be done with it, but the reality was different. They were stuck in the same small house for at least an entire day, and if they cut their conversations short, there wouldn’t be much for them to do anymore but sulk in their own corners of the living room. 

“How did you two meet?”

“We had a conference together, actually. He offered to get me a drink, I said yes, it all went from there.” 

It was a pretty simplified description of the moment they’d met, actually. She remembered how her belly had twisted with anxiety at first when this big, muscular man walked towards her and asked her if she wanted something to drink. She remembered how she couldn’t compare him to Fitz physically for the first few hours, and how she hated herself for it. But then he’d kissed her, and it had been nice. And Jemma had decided to let go, and enjoy something new. Her finger had been bare from any ring for a few months at that point, and when she still sometimes caught herself looking at the missing piece of jewelry she kept on her bedside table, the pale mark on her finger had almost faded entirely.

“Do you love him?”

Fitz’s question surprised her. Of all the things he could have asked, such a simple one on her feelings made her pause. “ _Of course_ ,” she wanted to reply, something so simple, yet the words caught in her throat. She looked at her soon to be ex-husband, his raw and open face as he asked her about her new life, a life he wasn’t a part of. 

“Yes,” she eventually replied, voice tight. 

“Okay.” 

The sound of Jemma swallowing with difficulty was loud in the silent kitchen, and she masked her discomfort by taking a big gulp of her tea, enjoying the liquid as it slid down her throat. Neither she nor Fitz seemed to know where to go from there, Fitz still staring at the stack of papers in front of him with a frown Jemma couldn’t quite decipher. It was weird, Jemma thought as she looked at the pen in his hands, to think that they were a simple signature away from being divorced. That such a simple gesture that would take mere seconds would erase decades of memories and happiness together. Just as she was about to voice her thoughts, which was perhaps not the greatest idea she’d had, Hephaestus jumped on the kitchen island and blinked at her lazily. 

“Fitz,” Jemma asked slowly, eyebrows raising in surprise. “Why is the cat on the table?” 

Fitz groaned, grabbing Hephaestus by the middle and putting it down on his lap. “I let him get on the table sometimes,” he said, frowning at her expression. “He feels lonely when he’s on the floor.”

Jemma scoffed. “Of course the cat feels lonely, which is an excuse to give him bad manners.”

“Hey! He doesn’t have bad manners. He’s a very nice, well behaved cat,” he said, looking down at Hephaestus. “Aren’t you, baby?” 

Hephaestus mewled slowly in response, and Jemma rolled her eyes. “Of course you would let him get away with anything. You’ve always been the cool dad of the story, weren’t you?” 

Her last sentence made them both freeze in their tracks. They hadn’t mentioned the discussions they’d had before Jemma left yet, late at night in bed as they were curled around one another. How they’d talked about making a baby, and how Jemma had already planned to get off the pill not long before she left. How they’d been ready for this new chapter of their life, and how Fitz had already saved several pages of baby stuff on their shared computer. 

“Yeah,” Fitz replied blankly, fingers tightening in Hephaestus’ fur. “Anyway.” 

The knot in Jemma’s chest had tightened once more, and she had to blink her eyes away. “Yeah, anyway.”

“Are you sure this is what you want, Jemma?” Fitz finally asked, mentioning the divorce papers with his chin. Hephaestus was already trying to get his paw on the pen, and Fitz caught it just in time to put it away. 

“What are you implying?” Jemma asked immediately, feeling her entire body tense. “Is this all a game to you, Fitz? Because if it is--” 

“It’s not, Jemma.” He replied immediately, shaking his head. “It’s just… You talk about your relationship with Will the way you would talk about your business company. It’s just weird, that’s all. I’m just trying to make sure this is what you really want, that’s all.” 

This time, all the confusion in Jemma’s mind left, replaced by white rage as she squeezed her fists. 

“How dare you?” she spat, “How dare you act like you know anything about me anymore, Fitz? You’re not in my life anymore, and it’s been three years since I left. Don’t you dare act like you know what I want, and what I should want.” 

She shot up, turning her heels before she could say something that she truly regretted. Fitz always knew exactly how to press her buttons, and it made her blood boil to think that he still had such an effect on her after so long. The moment she did though, she heard Fitz curse, putting down Hephaestus on the floor before he ran after her. 

“Jemma,” he said, catching her by the arm. The movement made her spin around a little, and the chain around her neck shot out from between her breasts, catching Fitz’s eyes. Jemma felt herself tense up before he even registered what it was, his entire demeanor changing when he did. “Is that your wedding ring?”

“It doesn’t matter.” 

“Well, yeah, it fucking does,” Fitz spat, letting go of her arm to throw his arms in the air. “That’s the entire problem right there, isn’t it? You come here, claiming that you want a divorce and then act all weird around me, you make yourself at home in the kitchen as if you’d never left and you talk about the good old days. What the fuck do you want, Jemma?”

Jemma grit her teeth. “What I want is for you to sign those fucking papers, Leo. I want to go back to New York, to a life I love with a man I’m going to marry, and forget about you entirely.” 

“Yeah? What, you think too much about me Jem, is that it? Does your husband know you’re keeping my grandmother’s ring around your neck, or is it yet another secret of yours? Bet you have loads of those, don’t you?” 

“Fuck you, Fitz. Fuck you and your big ego.” 

She hit him right in the chest, barely realizing that he’d raised his arms to catch her wrists, keeping them tight against the shirt he’d put on before heading downstairs in the morning. Jemma barely had time to wonder why he’d done that before Fitz’s lips crashed against hers, making her gasp in surprise. 

For a moment, she barely realized what was happening and she caught herself opening up to the kiss, forgetting everything but the feeling of Fitz’s lips against hers after so long. Fireworks burst behind her closed eyelids --when had she closed her eyes again?-- and for a moment it felt like she’d walked right back into the past and found herself kissing her husband passionately, the man she loved and wanted to make her life with. But reality soon crashed upon her, and Jemma gasped in horror against his lips. Suddenly the sweet taste of the syrup Fitz had eaten with his pancakes made her stomach lurch, and she pushed him back with two firm hands against his chest. She could barely stand to look at him in the eyes as he blinked his eyes opened, confused. To his credit, Fitz looked just as lost as she felt when he pulled back and licked his lips, chasing her taste and making Jemma’s heart do a weird little twirl in her chest.

“Fuck,” he eventually whispered, closing his eyes tightly. “I’m sorry, Jemma, I— I didn’t think, I never wanted to—” 

Before she could say anything, he’d turned around and disappeared upstairs. For a few slow, exhilarating seconds, Jemma found herself alone in the living room with nothing but the taste of Fitz’s lips on her mouth, and she could barely refrain herself from reaching out and pressing two tentative fingers against it. 

“Fuck,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. “Fuck.” 

When she heard Fitz walk back downstairs and straight into the kitchen, she didn’t have the strength to look up to him. And when she found the signed divoce papers on the kitchen island, she didn’t swallow back her tears, letting them wet her skin and fall down her cleavage as she curled in on herself on Fitz’s chair. 

* * *

That night as she curled in bed besides the man who was officially her ex-husband, Jemma couldn’t repress the question burning her lips. 

“Fitz?” she whispered, knowing damn well that he wasn’t asleep. They hadn’t spoken a single word to each other since the kiss, and Jemma hated how lonely she felt. Funnily enough, she hadn’t felt this way a single time from the moment she’d walked inside the cottage, feeling more at home than she’d done in a long time, but the deafening silence that had stretched between the two of them made her head hurt. 

“Yeah?” 

“Why did you keep everything the same in the cottage? It barely feels like I’ve left, if not for the things I took with me to New York. Everything is as it was before, even the sheets,” she said as she looked down, smiling softly. “I remember picking them up with you, and how hard we laughed when we realized how awfully they clashed with the rest of the room.” 

For a long moment, Fitz stayed silent. Jemma almost believed he wouldn’t grant her a response, but he eventually turned around to face her. In the semi obscurity, Jemma couldn’t see much of the room but she was able to decipher Fitz’s expression thanks to the moon’s rays filtering through the curtains. The storm was still raging outside, even if quieter than the night before. Jemma had no doubts the sky would be clear in the morning, as predicted. 

“Jemma,” Fitz started, and she found her heart clench at the softness of his tone. “You know you’re the love of my life, right? There won’t be anyone else for me, ever. You were it, and this house… this is our house, our life together. I couldn’t bring myself to change a single thing since you left.”

And not that unexpectedly, Jemma burst into tears. She could see from the way Fitz’s entire body tensed under the sheets that he was as confused as he was panicked by her reaction, but she couldn’t hold back her sobs this time. For a long moment she simply cried, letting her body get rid of all those emotions she’d held back for what felt like forever. And when her tears finally subsided, she shook her head with a sad smile. 

“You can’t wait around forever, Fitz,” she whispered, her voice raw from her tears. “You need to move on, and be happy without me. I have my life now in New York, and you need to have yours here in Scotland.”

“Jemma…”

“You deserve it, Fitz. You’ll always be my first love, my incredibly pig-headed but caring husband who made me discover sides of myself I never knew existed in the first place. But now you need to close this chapter of your life, alright? You need to promise me, Fitz.” she insisted, reaching out for him. She hadn’t realized how close they were now, their foreheads almost touching and Fitz’s heavy breath caressing her face. “You need to promise me you’ll try.”

Fitz swallowed heavily, the sound awfully loud in the tension of the bedroom. It felt like an eternity before he allowed himself a tiny nod. “Okay,” he finally whispered. “I’ll try.” 

Jemma forced herself to smile through her unshed tears. “Thank you.” 

“Can you…” Fitz whispered, clearing his throat. “Can I ask you something, before that?” 

“Sure. Anything.” 

“Can you let me hold you, one last time? You know, the way we used to, before all of this.” 

Jemma’s lungs felt like they were suddenly filled with heavy stones, and she wondered if it was possible to drown in the open air. “Yeah,” she eventually croaked. “Okay.” 

They fell asleep with their limbs tangled and their breaths mingling, just like they used to back at the academy. In the morning, Fitz didn’t get up with her, simply watching her from the bed as she walked around the room to gather her stuff and walked downstairs in complete silence. Jemma took the time to cuddle Hephaestus before ordering a cab, and she didn’t have the strength to look back as it drove away from the cottage and her old life.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter! one more until the end of this story!  
> you can find me on twitter @/keptinonzebridg! xx


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting back to her life in New York was more complicated than Jemma had thought at first. She knew her trip to Scotland had shaken her more than she was willing to admit, but she hadn’t exactly thought about what would come after.  
> She knew she should have cared a little bit more about her own wedding, but every time she thought about the ceremony her mind brought her back to another one, years before and halfway around the world. She remembered shiny blue eyes looking at her with so much reverence she’d felt like her heart would physically jump out of her chest, she remembered shaky hands and warm lips and a night spent kissing until she felt dizzy with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heeeelloooo!!!!  
> and here I come, with the third and last chapter of this story! it's 11k long, which means it's longer than the first two put together but I couldn't exactly cut it in half, so I hope you'll forgive me. 
> 
> thank you so much to eclecticmuses once more for taking the time to beta read all three chapters, and being so nice to me. go check her stories if you haven't already, because they're simply amazing!
> 
> and a big, huge even, thank you to my dear friend nick who came up with the idea in the first place. it was one of the most fun i've had writing something, and it's all thanks to your and your inputs. I couldn't have written this small (but not so small, ah) thing without you. thank you for letting me be a little parasite in your dms and harass you every single day <3 
> 
> PLEASE BEWARE OF THE RATING.  
> I've changed it, because there is a mature/explicit scene in this chapter. HOWEVER! you can skip it if you want, because I've marked it with three little stars (***) in bold right before the scene, and right after. this way, you'll be able to read this chapter without having to go through the sex scene if you don't feel comfortable with it! 
> 
> There is also a small intimate scene between Will and Jemma at the beginning of the chapter. feel free to skip it if you don't feel comfortable with it, it begins with "come to bed?" and ends with the horizontal line to divide the chapters. 
> 
> anyway!! I hope this chapter will be a great ending to this story, and I hope you will like it. feel free to leave a comment or kudo if you feel like it, too! xx

Getting back to her life in New York was more complicated than Jemma had thought at first. She knew her trip to Scotland had shaken her more than she was willing to admit, but she hadn’t exactly thought about what would come after. Will had been delighted to hear that she’d gotten the papers signed, gushing about how his mother had wanted to finalize the wedding preparations for days. Jemma realized that as opposed to what she’d asked, Will’s mother had decided on almost everything when it came to the decoration of the venue, and she didn’t have the heart to tell Will that she didn’t like the dark green she’d chosen for the tables. She felt like she was walking in a daze, and nothing really phased her. She knew she should have cared a little bit more about her own wedding, but every time she thought about the ceremony her mind brought her back to another one, years before and halfway around the world. She remembered shiny blue eyes looking at her with so much reverence she’d felt like her heart would physically jump out of her chest, she remembered shaky hands and warm lips and a night spent kissing until she felt dizzy with it.

Her best friend Daisy was just as frustrated as she was with the entire thing, which didn’t help her mood in the slightest. Jemma knew Daisy well, she’d been her roommate for almost two years when she’d moved to Brooklyn and had been until Jemma had moved to Will’s flat in Manhattan. She’d been there to ease her sobs whenever she thought about Fitz at first, had been there when she’d met Will and wondered if it wasn’t too early for her to see anyone else, and was now the one organizing most of her wedding. She did _not_ however get along with Will’s mother, and Jemma knew for a fact that the feeling was reciprocated. 

Which was the reason why she’d spent almost two hours on the phone calming Daisy down when she’d heard that Alicia Daniels had decided to do whatever she pleased with the decoration of the venue, and Jemma was exhausted. She understood her best friend, she really did, but she had a lot to deal with herself. But Daisy had been a treasure from the beginning of this adventure. She’d known how much Jemma had to do for work, having been promoted right before her engagement, and she had offered to take care of everything. Knowing that all of her efforts had been thrown out of the window because Will’s mother had suddenly decided she wanted to do whatever she pleased irritated Jemma to the highest point, but there was no way to talk Alicia out of her ideas. She knew, because she’d already tried several times before. 

“Are you okay, babe?” Will asked for what felt like the hundredth time that evening, his fingers finding the straps of her bra. He always did that, Jemma thought with annoyance as she pulled back, putting some distance between the two of them. He knew she didn’t like the way he gently snapped the strap against her skin because she bruised like a peach, but he never really much cared anyway. He always found the rosy skin on her shoulder ‘adorable’, no matter how it clashed with her freckles and how long it took for her skin to get back to normal. 

“I’m fine” Jemma replied with a tight smile. “Just my report being a bitch to write.” She didn’t feel like telling him about the wedding. She knew Will was totally uninterested in anything related to the ceremony, and he’d jokingly told her once that all he was waiting for was the moment he’d see her walk down the aisle in her white dress. He was busy with work, as always, and he’d implicitly trusted her with everything. 

Jemma closed her laptop shut with a sigh. Will didn’t seem phased, simply coming up behind her to kiss her temple, running his hands down her sides. She could have done with a massage, but as she suspected, Will’s touch was too teasing and light for anything of that sort. Soon enough, he was trailing kisses down her neck and Jemma closed her eyes around a sigh, going lax in his arms. 

“Come to bed?” He asked, voice rough with desire. 

She couldn’t say no, not that she’d wanted to in the first place. Ever since she’d come home, she’d been distant enough for Will to be frustrated with her more than once, and she knew it wasn’t his fault if she felt so out of it. Leopold Fitz had always been able to make her go crazy in more ways than one, and of course he’d haunt her this time around too. It was normal after all, she told herself as Will guided her to bed and kissed her body reverently, to have been taken aback by the weekend she’d spent with her ex-husband, whom she hadn’t seen in a very long time. 

She was forced to realize, however, as Will kissed her more languidly and eventually slid inside of her body, that the fireworks she was desperately waiting for didn’t seem to appear behind her closed eyelids. Her body seemed completely dissociated from her mind, and she blessed the darkness of the room for allowing her to close her eyes without questions from her fiancé. If Will realized she was distracted, he didn’t say a thing, simply walking to the bathroom when he was done and closing the shower curtain behind him. Everything felt wrong, Jemma thought when he came back and slid in the bed besides her, wrapping his arms around her middle. His arms were too muscular, his chest too firm and the feeling of his breath against her neck was more annoying than anything else. Slipping away from his grasp to go shower as well, Jemma was barely able to look at herself in the mirror of the bathroom. And when she finally managed to fall asleep that night, it was with a wave of nausea lurching through her entire body. 

* * *

“Look who’s there!” Daniel greeted her as he opened the door of his and Daisy’s little Brooklyn flat, letting Jemma walk inside with a bashful smile she could barely restrain. 

“Hey there, Daniel. How have you been?” 

He hugged her tight, and Jemma felt some of the tension in her shoulders slip away at the familiar embrace. Daisy had met Daniel Sousa not long before Jemma had met Will, which led to him moving in with Daisy a little after Jemma had moved out. He was the perfect match for her friend, the ying to her yang and the calm force to her eccentric personality. Jemma absolutely adored him, and she knew he was months away from popping the big question to Daisy as well. 

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Daniel replied, closing the door behind her and taking her coat like the true gentleman he always was. “I should ask you, because you’re the one who’s about to get married in a few weeks.” 

Jemma couldn’t hold back her grimace. “Yeah, uh. This is actually why I’m here. Is Daisy here? I know she was a little annoyed yesterday night, and I wanted to see her.” 

Daniel laughed. “Yeah, a little annoyed is an euphemism. She’s in our bedroom, I’ll leave you girls to it, and get you some margaritas going. I feel like you’re both gonna need it.” He said with a knowing wriggle of his eyebrow. 

“Daniel, you’re perfect. I hope Daisy tells you that enough!” 

She heard him laugh as he walked back towards the kitchen, leaving Jemma to walk towards his and Daisy’s bedroom by her own. She slipped through the corridor and knocked gently against the wooden door before coming in, finding her best friend on all fours on the bed in the middle of several pieces of papers. 

“Well, that’s a welcome I’m not going to forget anytime soon,” Jemma teased as she closed the room behind her, making Daisy jump in surprise. 

“Jemma!” She exclaimed, pushing a wild strand of hair back behind her ear. She didn’t care one tiny bit about her state of dress, something Jemma always found hilarious.“Thank god you’re here, I need your help. Do you prefer magenta or bordeau? Alicia can kiss my ass with her dark green, everyone knows you hate it. I’m gonna change the table decoration, but I need to do it before she notices. Meaning I need to do it in the next few hours.”

Jemma felt her heart clench at the sight of her best friend, disheveled and exhausted as she prepared a wedding that made her stomach lurch everytime she thought about it lately. “Ah,” she whispered, sitting down heavily next to Daisy on the bed. “Yeah, the table decoration.” 

Daisy wasn’t her best friend for nothing, and she didn’t need more to realize something was wrong. Turning around and crushing a few pages with the movement, she sat down next to Jemma and wrapped her arms around her shoulders in a firm embrace. “What’s going on, Jem? You know you can tell me everything, right?” 

Jemma knew that, rationally. But telling her best friend what was on her mind was something she found incredibly nerve wracking and stressful, no matter how much she’d prepared for it. Jemma had spent most of her life sharing her every thought and feeling with the same person, and she realized now that this person wasn’t in her life anymore that she deeply missed this connection.

“Is this about the wedding?” 

“How—“

“I know you, Jemma Simmons. And I would recognize that look everywhere.” She sighed, squeezing the back of Jemma’s neck with two firm fingers. “Do you wanna hear what I have to say about the matter? I don’t know if you’ll like it, though. But I made a promise years ago never to lie to my friends, and especially my best friend in the world.” 

If there was one thing Daisy was good at, it was brutal and honest truth. Jemma loved that about her, no matter how much it hurt sometimes. But she also knew this was exactly what she needed at this very moment, and with a deep sigh, she nodded. 

“Alright,” Daisy said with a small nod. “Jemma, you’re my best friend in the world and I love you very much. But you’re also an idiot, and I know I won’t get the chance to tell you that again before you get married, so you’ll have to bear with me.” She shifted a little bit on the bed, making herself more comfortable. “As I said, I love you very much. But you might be the biggest idiot I know, and that’s saying something considering the fact that you’ve got two whole PhDs for yourself.” 

“Hey!” the sound burst out of Jemma’s mouth before she could even do anything about it, but the look Daisy gave her stopped her right in her tracks. 

“I’m not done. I said you’re, what would you say? A bloody idiot. Because everyone and their cousin knows you’ve been sulking since you came back from your trip to Scotland, which happened to be the only time in three years when you got to see the ex-husband you used to be so heartbroken over when you moved to New York. Do you think this is a coincidence? Because I certainly don’t think so.” 

This time, Jemma kept her mouth shut. It felt like heavy stones had been dropped at the bottom of her stomach, and her throat felt almost too tight to breathe correctly. 

“Now listen to me Jem, because I know this is going to be hard to hear, but it’s also for your own good. In the almost two years you’ve been with Will, I haven’t learned half as much about him as I’ve learned about Fitz, and you were already separated by the time you arrived on this side of the world. I know everything about how Fitz likes your mozzarella and buffalo homemade sandwich more than anything in the world, how you used to know him better than you knew yourself and how he used to be such a baby when he was sick, falling asleep in your arms in front of the Lord of the Rings. I know how much you loved seeing him with Hephaestus and I know you’d started seeing a gynecologist to see if you could get off the pill as soon as possible. I know about the pancakes you made him when you’d had a _very_ good night, and about how his mum made you feel like you were the best thing that happened to their family.” Daisy took a deep breath. “Now Will? I like him, I really do. He’s a solid man, a good man who’s probably gonna make you happy. But Jemma… you’re not in love with Will. And quite honestly? I don’t think you ever were, to begin with. I’m not saying you don’t like him, and I’m not saying he didn’t make you happy in his own way. But you know as well as I do that you’ll never be fully happy with him, because he’s not the one you’ve dreamed about settling with.”

Each word sliced through Jemma’s heart like a sharp knife, making tears well up in her eyes. She’d always known, deep down, that the things she felt for Will didn’t even begin to compare with the feelings she used to have for Fitz. But her trip to Dunblane had just confirmed her suspicions, and she’d hated herself and her body for feeling so many things the moment Fitz had pressed his lips against hers. It had felt like her body was coming to life again, a cocktail of sensations and desire coursing through her veins for the first time in a very, very long time. She could almost remember the taste of Fitz’s tongue after so long, his scent making her head spin and his warm body fitting oh so perfectly against hers. 

“And I’m not blaming you,” Daisy kept going, unaware of her inner turmoil. “That’s not what I’m doing here, Jemma. But I think you need to be honest with yourself and think about what you want to do before you get married to someone you don’t wanna spend the rest of your life with.” 

“But I love Will,” Jemma whispered, most likely to convince herself. 

Daisy’s face twisted in a grimace Jemma knew by heart. “You care about him very much, yes. But you’re not in love with him. Because I don’t think you’ve ever stopped being in love with Fitz, and I think your trip back to Scotland only made you realize that.”

“But… I can’t—”

“You don’t have to hate yourself for it, Jemma. You can’t control your heart, and you can’t control your feelings. God knows it would be much simpler otherwise. Is it a perfect situation?” she scoffed, “Hell, certainly not. It even sounds a bit like a cheesy Hallmark movie, if you think about it. But it’s life, it’s raw and it’s real and it’s your feelings and your future we’re talking about.”

Jemma let out a small wet laugh. “Yeah, it would be much simpler if it was a movie, wouldn’t it?” 

“It certainly would. But that’s not how it works.” 

“But I can’t… I can’t do that to Will,” Jemma whispered brokenly. “He’s a good man, and he loves me. He’s going to… I can’t do this to him.” 

Against all odds, Daisy sighed, pulling back a little from their embrace. “Jemma… Will is a good man, yes. But I don’t think he’ll be that devastated with the wedding cancellation. Your relationship… it’s not his top priority, you know? I’ve seen him care more about his society’s deals than about making sure you are happy with the decisions he takes for the both of you. And I know… I know it’s the same for you, somehow. You’re far too clever to have been lured into this relationship without knowing exactly what you’d get from it, and I think that’s precisely what you were waiting for. Because having a fiancé who’s never home and lets you lose yourself in your work allowed you not to dwell on what could have been with someone else.”

Jemma was suddenly taken back to all those times she’d had to stare at the empty seat in front of her at dinner, because Will wasn’t there and hadn’t bothered to excuse himself. The thing was, she knew how taking jobs could be. She was the head of the science division in her company, too, and she knew the concessions she had to make when it came to her private life. But Will tended to put his job before anything else, and no matter how much it annoyed her sometimes, Jemma always pushed back those thoughts to the back of her head. 

“I never resent him for that,” she eventually said. “I know what it’s like to be a workaholic, and I know it’s not easy putting your job before everything else.” 

“Jemma… you never resent him for that because that’s what you _loved_ about him. Him being away so often and so concentrated on his job gave you the space you needed, because this way you didn’t have to ask yourself about your feelings for him. We both know you’re too smart to fool me, girl.” 

Jemma let out a small chuckle, a few tears escaping her eyes as she did so. She wiped them with the back of her hand, eyes falling on the engagement ring she was wearing.

“What am I going to do, Daisy?” 

Her best friend gave her a small smile, covering the sight of the ring with her fingers and squeezing her hand reassuringly. 

“I can’t tell you that, Jem, because it’s up to you now. But I know you’ll make the right decision.” 

Jemma knew that. It didn’t mean it was any less easier. 

* * *

_“Are you sure you’re okay, Leo?”_

Fitz grimaced, glad that his mum wasn’t able to see his face through the phone. He’d never been a really good liar, and his mum knew him too well to fall for any of the tricks he could have tried on her. But how could he tell her the truth? He was barely able to face the fact that he hadn’t moved from his bed in three weeks, let alone done anything of importance besides sulk during this time. His mother didn’t need to know what a failure he was, again.

“Yeah, I’m fine mum. Just a bit tired, that’s all. You know how work can be sometimes.” 

The truth was, work had been boring as hell for the past few months. Fitz hated it, no matter how much he didn’t want to admit it at loud. It seemed like his life was stuck to a point he abhorred, and Fitz felt too depressed about it to even care at this point. A few years ago he was dating the love of his life after getting his PhD in engineering, ready to start a job in a firm he loved and to build a family with the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Now there he was, divorced, heartbroken still, and bored to tears with his life. 

_“Alright. You know you can tell me anything, right?”_

Fitz’s throat closed up. His mum had been his confidante and best friend in the years following his breakup with Jemma, in a way he’d never thought could be possible. He’d always been close to her, because she’d always been the only parent in his life, but he’d discovered a whole new side of her after Jemma’s departure. For a while, she’d come to live with him, making sure he got out of bed and took care of himself. He’d decided to get rid of the couch once she’d gotten back to Glasgow —too many memories— but Maggie Fitz always made sure to stop by at least once a week ever since.

“I know, mum. I know, it’s just… it’s a bit difficult at the moment.” 

His mum sighed on the other end of the phone. _“It’s about Jemma, isn’t it? Frank told me she visited for a short while a few weeks past, and you saw her, didn’t you?”_

Fitz tended to forget how close Jemma’s parents and his mum still were. They’d known each other for decades now, and they’d stayed in regular contact long after their kids had broken up. Fitz never asked, but he knew his mum visited them in London as much as she could, and they did the same with her in Glasgow. He couldn’t blame her for keeping her friends close, but sometimes he couldn’t help but resent her a little bit for being able to keep that little part of Jemma with her. His heart felt so empty it physically ached sometimes.

“Yeah,” he rasped, clearing his throat. “Yeah, she came by.” 

_“Why didn’t you tell me?”_

“Well, it seems like I didn’t have to did I?” 

_“Leo.”_

Fitz sighed. “Sorry, mum.” 

Hephaestus jumped on the bed, nosing at his hand with a mewl. Fitz immediately buried his hand in his fur, loving the slight tremors of his purr under the tip of his fingertips. It had felt like a knife had been planted right through his heart when he’d seen the cat walk around the house in confusion for a few days after Jemma had gone back to America, looking for her and assuming she’d be back like before. In a selfish way, Fitz had felt a little better when he’d realized he wasn’t the only one hurting for once. 

_“How did it go?”_ his mum asked, voice kind.

Forcing himself to swallow past the dryness in his throat, Fitz hummed. The truth was, almost three weeks after her departure, it still felt like he was going to die of heartbreak. He’d thought that Jemma leaving three years ago was painful, but he now knew that it was nothing compared to her leaving a second time. After getting a taste of what it could be like if Jemma suddenly walked back into their lives as if she’d never left, seeing her leave to marry someone else was probably the most painful thing Fitz had ever felt.

“She’s getting married. Big, rich dude who works at NASA. She had a promotion, too, and she’s the head of the science department where she works, not that I would have ever doubted that.”

_“Oh, Leo. I’m so sorry.”_

Fitz chuckled, his voice breaking into a sob. “I miss her, mum. I miss her so bad I feel like I’m gonna die, like my heart is never going to stop hurting. I thought… I thought I’d stopped hurting, you know? Turns out I’d just gotten used to the pain.” 

_“I know, baby. I know.”_

“And that’s just it, isn’t it? I get used to it, and then I go back to pretending that I’m fine when I’m really not. I go back to pretending I love my life, my job and everything that comes with it.” 

Fitz knew his mum didn’t need to hear all of this, and he knew it was most certainly hurting her just as much as it hurt him to admit it. But both the tears and the words wouldn’t stop coming, and even the weight of Hephaestus against his arm did nothing to ease his aching heart. 

_“Do you want me to come today?”_ his mum asked, her gentle voice soothing some of his anxiety away. Suddenly, Fitz felt like a ten years old, and all he wanted was his mum. 

“I don’t… I don’t want to bother you,” he whispered weakly. “I know you have other things to do.”

_“Leo, I don’t care about those things. You know you’ll always come first, no matter what. I’ll be there in half an hour, okay?”_

Fitz barely had the strength to reply, simply letting his phone fall back on the bed when his mum hung up and curling around Hephaestus like his life depended on it. 

* * *

Once upon a time, Fitz watched the love of his life walk down the aisle on her father’s arms. He gazed upon her lacy white dress, her beautiful hair curling around her face and the thick coat of mascara making her honey brown eyes look bigger than ever and at this very moment, Leopold Fitz realized he was probably the luckiest person in the universe. 

_“What are you thinking about?”_ Jemma had asked him that night, lips red and swollen from his kisses and hair spread on the pillow like a halo. Her skin was flushed all the way down to her cleavage, and Fitz couldn’t help but admire the little bites and hickeys he’d left all the way down to her nipples. 

Fitz had chuckled, burying his face in her neck. _“Nothing important. I’m just happy, is all.”_

_“Oh, well. It’s a good thing then, isn’t it?”_

He remembered the way she’d looked, covers twisted around her naked body and skin warm. It was the middle of the night, and they’d turned on the bedside lamp. The yellowish glow made her skin look like pure gold, and Fitz wanted to trail his lips all the way down the apex of her thighs and put his mouth between her legs once more. 

_“Yeah, Jemma. A very good thing.”_

_“I never want to leave this bed,”_ she’d whispered, trailing her hands down his chest playfully. _“Do you think we could stay here forever?”_

_“Well, we do have a lot of things planned for our honeymoon,”_ he’d reminded her, kissing the tip of her nose before trailing his lips down her cheek and against the corner of her lips. _“Because may I remind you that my wife loves planning? She’s a bit of a workaholic, that one.”_

_“Wife,”_ Jemma had chuckled as he settled between her legs, his hardness grazing the inside of her thigh. _“I like the sound of that.”_

_“Hmmm. I like it too.”_

Fitz remembered making love to her that night, again and again, his heart filled with so much love it burst out of every touch. He remembered every single detail of that night, from the way Jemma’s mouth parted in a perfect “o” whenever he touched that special place inside of her that made her see stars to the way she smiled at him when they fell half asleep between kisses. But somehow, all of this had never prepared him for the sensations he’d feel once he kissed her again after 3 whole years. 

It might have been a mistake, something Fitz was pretty keen on making it would seem, but Fitz could never regret his impulse move. Kissing Jemma again had felt like slicing his heart open with a bone knife, because he’d always known it wouldn’t last and the wonderful taste of her lips would be the last memory of her he’d ever get. And the following weeks were hard, they truly were, but at least he got to cherish the last bits of intimacy he’d had with his ex-wife. 

Getting to hold her as they fell into a restless sleep had been like a last, dying wish. That night, he’d held Jemma tight against his chest and tried to fight his will to sleep just to be able to memorize her face and all the tiny details that made her so perfect. From the constellations of freckles to the arch of her rosy lips, he’d spent hours detailing her until it felt like her face was burned into his retinas, and only then had he allowed himself to fall asleep. Muscle memory was a wonderful thing, he’d thought when they’d woken up and tensed, aware of their positions. Unaware of their inner turmoil, their bodies had instinctively found their favorite position to sleep, and Fitz had once more been convinced his arms were made to hold Jemma against his chest. But in a more cruel way, that night had almost felt like the last time he’d ever see her. 

Which was why Fitz could barely compute what was happening on his doorstep. 

“Jemma?” he asked, blinking several times to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. He hadn’t slept properly in a month, and he’d been waiting for his mum, not the very object of his darkest thoughts. 

“Hi Fitz,” she replied, looking so very real. Her eyes were red and there was a big bag on the floor right next to her feet. “Am I… Is this a bad time?” 

“Wha— no? No, please, come in.”

Fitz barely repressed a grimace when he took the state of the living room. In the last month, apart from the time when his mum visited, he hadn’t taken the time to really clean up and arrange the house. Pillows, mugs and books covered the floor and every surface available, and Fitz suddenly felt like a teenager. 

“Fitz,” Jemma whispered as she looked around, a frown creasing the skin between her entire eyebrows. “Can we… is this a good time?” 

This time, Fitz could barely hold back his snort. “Yeah, Jemma. It’s not like I’ve got anything going on at the moment.” 

He hadn’t meant for his words to be that harsh, but Jemma took a step back nonetheless. To be fair, he’d been expecting his mum —even if she’d been quite early— not the ex-wife he’d been pining over to be behind the door. 

“I’m sorry, I— I didn’t exactly plan to come here like this either.” she apologized, rubbing her temple with two fingers. “I didn’t really think, actually. Just came straight here from the airport, because I needed to talk to you.” 

Fitz sagged against the wall, staring at his ex-wife. It seemed like every time she left, he forgot how much she took his breath away. She looked tired, the big bags under her eyes emphasizing just how much, but there was a light in her eyes he hadn’t seen in a while. 

“What are you doing here, Jemma?” he asked, willing his voice to stay even. 

“Oh, well,” she muttered, cheeks turning pink. “It’s a long story, really, but… I’m not getting married anymore, so there’s that.”

Fitz was pretty sure his eyes were comically wide as his mouth fell open in surprise. Jemma let out a small chuckle, rubbing the back of her neck self-consciously. 

“Yeah, hmm. Long story short, the last time I was here… It made me think, you know? About all those things we didn’t tell each other, all those missed occasions and how we broke up over something that could have been so simply avoided. I realized… I realized there was something missing in my life, something that had been missing for years actually.” 

Fitz felt like his heart had stopped in his chest. Slowly, he pinched the side of his arms to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, amused to see the way Jemma rolled her eyes at the action. Some things never changed

“You’ve… you’ve broken your engagement,” he said, uttering the words slowly. “You're not… you’re not getting married anymore.”

Jemma shook her head, a little shily. “Yeah, I did. I realized I was living in a lie, and I didn’t want to wake up one day realizing that this wasn’t the life I wanted.” 

“But… why? How? Did you…” Fitz stopped, exhaling a shaky breath. He was glad the wall behind him was still supporting him, because his shaky legs certainly wouldn’t have for long. “I don’t get it, Jemma. It’s just… it’s a bit much.” 

“I get it,” Jemma replied with a sad smile. “I never meant to… I never meant to assume anything, you know? I mean… It's been a week now, which gave me time to think and that’s the main reason why I’m here now. But I had things to plan and I had a lot of things to do. Turns out cancelling a wedding is pretty exhausting, and entails a lot of people to call and emails to send”

Fitz could help but smirk. “Yeah, I bet.” 

“And I know… I don’t expect you to just open your arms and welcome me back into your life,” Jemma kept going, looking anywhere but at him. “But I thought… I mean if you still want me, that is, I thought… I thought I’d take a place somewhere maybe, for a little while, and we could…”

Fitz found the strength to walk towards her, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. If this was a dream, he hoped he never woke up, because there was no way the woman he loved more than anything in the world had just told him she’d broken off her engagement and was back in his life. “And what about Will?” 

Jemma grimaced. “Will… Well, turns out he wasn’t that surprised, really. He’s a good person, he really is,” she said with an expression Fitz couldn’t quite decipher, “but we just weren’t meant to be together. And I think deep down, we both knew it.”

Fitz hummed. It made sense, really. Jealousy aside, he’d been surprised to see how uninterested Will had been with Jemma's trip to Scotland. He’d barely seen her text him when she was there, and she never talked about him unless he asked. Jemma had always loved small attention, surprise kisses and flowers, and it felt so very different from what Fitz was used to. “And what about your work?

“I took a leave, for a little while. I think I’ve put my life on hold long enough, and I deserve a little time for myself.”

“But you love your work.”

“I do. But I love you more.”

The words were out of her mouth before she could even think about it, and Jemma felt her eyes widen in surprise. Fitz’s heart swelled in his chest, and this time he didn’t even pretend to hold back his smile of pure happiness. 

“You love me,” he repeated. “You actually love me.”

Jemma rolled her eyes playfully. “I do. I still don’t know if it’s a good thing, but I do.”

Fitz couldn’t have held himself back even if he’d wanted to, his feet immediately leading him towards her. His lungs felt like they were allowing him to breathe fully for the first time in weeks, and each step towards Jemma felt like he learned how to breathe for the first time.

“We should take things slow,” Jemma kept going, her own breathing getting a little faster as Fitz creeped even closer, their bodies hovering close. “You know, make sure we don’t make the same mistakes twice.”

“Hmm,” Fitz replied, eyes darkening. “We should, yeah.” 

Neither of them could say which one moved first, but the next thing they knew, their lips were pressed against one another and their bodies flush together. Jemma let out a small yelp of surprise, but before Fitz could pull back, her hands framed the back of his neck and her breasts pressed a little firmer against his torso. Their tongues found each other when Fitz opened his mouth a little bit, deepening their kiss, and it was only when they found themselves panting for air that they separated. 

“We really should take the time to consider where we’re heading,” Jemma said as she trailed her lips down his neck, nipping at the flesh there and tearing a grown out of Fitz’s mouth. “To, you know… make sure we— oh!” 

Fitz pushed his forehead against Jemma’s. “Maybe we should just stop talking and thinking for a while, uh?” 

“And just do,” she added. Her eyes were shining with mirth as she looked down at his lips once more. “Yeah, okay.” 

*******

The moment Fitz fell back on the bed, he was thrown back to a time when this vision of Jemma hovering over him like this was his everyday life. He remembered it well, the way she always muffled her laugh in open mouthed kisses, and the way her knees turned to jelly whenever he rubbed his stubble against the sensitive skin of her neck. And as their clothes fell to the floor, leaving in their place two burning naked bodies and Jemma straddling him, Fitz was hit by how familiar it all felt. It had been three years, their bodies had changed —he had more core muscles now, which Jemma seemed to appreciate enough with the way she ran her warm hands up and down his torso, and her hips were rounder, ass more firm under his palm— but their minds seemed to remember exactly what used to drive them both crazy. 

“Jemma,” he whispered brokenly as she rubbed herself against him, her wet core feeling like heaven against the hard length of his cock. 

When Fitz looked down between their bodies, watching the way his dick was now deliciously trapped between his lower belly and her shiny pussy lips, he let out a groan of pleasure. With each movement forward, he could see the tip of her clit brush against the mushroom head of his cock, and his eyes closed against the onslaught of desire that cursed through his body. 

“Lemme touch you,” he begged eventually, eyes boring into hers. “Please?”

Jemma seemed to hesitate, which gave him enough time to switch their position. Before long, he was hovering on top of her, kissing her lips one more time before sliding down the length of her body. He rubbed his bearded chin against the side of her jaw, loving the way her breath caught in her throat at the sensation. He’d never really had stubble back then, but Jemma leaving him had given him a few bad habits that he hadn’t been able to shake. Now that she trembled in his arms as the hair on his chin rubbed against her delicate skin, he took a moment to high five his past self. 

“Fitz!” she whispered brokenly, her fingers twisting in his curls. “Please, I need…” 

His lips kissed his way down her neck, then towards her breasts. His heart felt like it was about to explode as he looked at the hard nub of her nipples for the first time in so long, mouth watering at the sight. He’d always had a thing for her breasts, and he wasn’t one to deny that he could spend hours cherishing them. Jemma had always found it endearing, and he hoped things hadn’t changed for her in the years when they’d been apart. The first touch of his tongue and lips around her nipple had Jemma yelping in surprise, and he pulled back just enough to be able to look at her questioningly. 

“Your beard,” she explained “it feels… I like it.”

Fitz couldn’t hold back his smile this time, diving right back in. Her gentle moans soon turned into full gasps of pleasure, and before long Fitz was letting go of her spit covered nipples with an audible ‘pop’. “Forgot how much I loved your breasts,” he whispered, pushing his face in between them and inhaling deeply. He’d always loved the way she smelled, just like _home_. 

“Forgot how much I loved feeling you play with them,” Jemma replied teasingly. 

His journey down her body kept going, slowly but surely. His lips planted kisses down her stomach then the apex of her thighs, never truly giving her what she craved so desperately. 

“Fitz!” Jemma eventually moaned, twisting a few of his curls in her grip, directing his mouth wherever she wanted it. 

Fitz pressed his smile against the inside of her thigh, kissing the warm skin there. “Yeah?” he whispered, finally giving in. It had been way too long since he’d last been able to bury his face between her thighs, and it was painful to wait for the both of them. It had been a long time for him, but not for Jemma, and a silly part of him wanted to prove himself to the woman he’d never stopped loving. 

“Fitz... “ Jemma warned, her voice low. The only response she got was a chuckle, and finally, Fitz’s lips touched the place she wanted him the most. A string of blinding pleasure coursed through Jemma’s entire body and she let out a small curse, letting Fitz push his palms under her thighs to open them a little wider. He seemed to remember exactly what made her moan the loudest, using one hand to part her lips to be able to gently lick at the nub of flesh that made her toes curl. Instinctively, Jemma’s hands found his curls and she arched at the touch, letting out a small sigh of pleasure. 

She’d always loved just how much Fitz liked spending time between her legs. Jemma wasn’t a shy or self-conscious person by nature, but she’d realized once she and Fitz had broken up that feeling confident and sexy in front of other people did not come as naturally as it did with him. Fitz had been her first boyfriend, just like she’d been his first girlfriend, and they’d known each other’s body by heart. And eventually, intimacy such as Fitz licking at the most sensitive places between her legs came naturally for the both of them. But Jemma had soon realized that the eagerness and passion he put into making sure she came apart with his lips on her clit was a _Fitz_ thing. Which she wasn’t about to complain about, really. 

“Fuck, I’ve missed this,” he whispered against the inside of her thigh, rubbing his bearded cheek against her tender skin. Jemma could feel herself pulse with want, the first few movements of his tongue having awakened something deep inside of her. 

Jemma had never been shy with her desire and pleasure. But she wasn’t too keen on admitting that her sexual life —and consequently her pleasure— hadn’t been at its best since she’d stepped foot out of Dunblane. No one seemed to know her quite like Fitz, no matter how she tried to stop comparing everything to her ex-husband. 

“I’ve missed it too,” she admitted, looking down at her ex-husband, catching his gaze as he looked up at her at the same time. He looked sexier than ever between her legs, lips shiny with her desire and cheeks red with his own. “Now get to work already.” 

Jemma didn’t miss the cheeky smile he offered her as she ordered him around, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it before her head fell back on the couch, body seized with another wave of pleasure. Fitz’s fingers were digging almost uncomfortably into her thighs as he held them open, making sure he kept the best angle to make her see stars. Jemma couldn’t hold back her moans of encouragement as he licked at her, alternating rhythm and pressures on her oversensitive bundle of nerves until she could feel herself go dizzy with it. She was clenching around nothing, something Fitz most definitely felt as he alternated between her clit and her opening with the tip of tongue, but he was relentless in his movements nonetheless. 

“Fitz!” Jemma exclaimed at some point, gasping for air. “I need…” 

He only growled in response, propping one of her legs on his shoulder to be able to slide his fingers alongside her opening teasingly. Fortunately for Jemma, he didn’t seem to be in the mood for too much teasing, and soon Fitz pushed his two middle fingers inside of her slowly. 

“Fuck,” they both muttered at the same time. The sensation felt both foreign and so familiar, and Jemma felt her walls clench around him. 

It only took a few tentative pumps of his hand before Fitz settled his fingers in a delicious, familiar “come here” motion that made stars burst behind Jemma’s eyelids. Each drag of his fingertips against her most delicate spot made her arch, and she knew her fingers were most likely gripping Fitz’s curls a little too tight but nothing could have prevented her from holding on to dear life at that very moment. She felt herself slip towards a fast climax, but the moment she felt her toes curl and her breathing get a little bit more difficult, Fitz pulled back with one last delicious suck around her oversensitive clit. 

“Fitz!” Jemma exclaimed, opening her eyes to look at her lover as he pulled his fingers back as well, kissing the inside of her knee before kneeling between her legs. His cock stood proud and heavy between them, and Jemma resisted the urge to push him back on the bed and have her way with him. “I was so close!”

Fitz wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, hmm, I know. Thing is, uh…” His cheeks pinked a little as he looked back at her, the black of his pupils making him look way more sexy than he had the right to be at this very moment. “It’s been a while, for me,” He whispered in a rush, “and I don’t think I’m gonna last long? So if you’re close, hmm… at least I’m not gonna make a total fool of myself here.” 

For what felt like the hundredth time in one night, Jemma felt her heart jump in her chest. She was so full of love and adoration for this kind but awkward man that it felt like her chest could burst with it, and she wasted no time in catching his lips in a bruising kiss. His beard was wet with her juices, and she let out a low moan as she switched their position on the bed. 

“Been a while, uh?” she asked as she straddled his hips, making him hiss when the warm skin of her thigh came in contact with his rock hard cock. 

Fitz couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her breasts. “Yeah, hmm. Since you left, actually.” 

The revelation made Jemma pause. “What?” 

“I didn’t… well. I haven’t had anyone since you left.” 

His blue eyes were raw and honest as he looked up at her, and Jemma suddenly felt like her lungs were filled with water. “You didn’t date anyone?” 

“Well”, Fitz admitted with a small grimace, “I tried. But I never really managed to get past a few first kisses, actually. It just didn’t feel right. So I gave up.”

This time when Jemma launched herself at Fitz, he was ready for her kisses. Their mouth collided hard, harder than Jemma had originally planned, and they both lost themselves into the kiss once more. The wet sounds of their kisses made Fitz’s head spin, the softness of Jemma’s lips both a cherished memory and a newfound pleasure. He could have spent hours just kissing her, enjoying the taste of her lips and tongue and making sure her mouth looked as debauched as the rest of her. But Jemma had other plans, and she eventually pulled back to straddle him comfortably, hovering above him. 

“Good?” She asked as she reached between them, appreciating the firmness of his member and the wonderful way it felt against her clit when she rolled her hips. 

Fitz nodded, eyes a little glassy.“Yeah, yeah.” 

The moment she sank down on him, Jemma couldn’t help but let out the smallest moan of pleasure. It felt good, perfect even, to be reunited with Fitz this way. She’d missed the feeling of complete and utter rightness that came with accepting him inside of her, even if she had to take a few deep breaths and roll her hips slowly. 

“You good?” Fitz asked, the muscles of his jaw twitching. Jemma could see in the way his brows were creased and his arms tensed on her thighs that he was probably doing his best not to move an inch, and her heart swelled with yet another kind of gratitude for this man. 

“Yeah,” she sighed, working a hand between their bodies to gently press her middle finger against her clit, gradually relaxing herself with each little wave of pleasure coursing through her body. “You’re thicker than I remember.”

Fitz let out a small grunt. “Not helping, Jemma!”

This time, Jemma couldn’t help but laugh a little. The situation felt almost unreal, if she thought about it. She was in bed with her ex-husband, the both of them extremely worked up after years without any kind of physical contact between them, and it all felt like they hadn’t been separated for more than a couple of months. 

“Sorry, sorry.” 

Fortunately for Jemma, her hilarity and the intimacy of it all helped her relax enough to take him fully inside of her in one swift movement, and by the time she bottomed out and flushed their hips together, they were both panting. 

“Fuck,” Fitz said as he looked up at her, eyes a little glassy and forehead shiny with sweat, “this feels way too good to be a dream.” 

“Still not convinced I’m real?” Jemma chuckled, rolling her hips a little. The movement made her gasp as little tendrils of pleasure spread through her body, and she had to put one hand on his torso for leverage, nails scraping his flesh slightly. She’d missed the feeling of his chest hair under her palms as she rode his cock, and the mere thought made her clench around him deliciously. 

Fitz’s eyes fell on her bouncing breasts, his fingers digging into the flesh of her thighs. “Still debating it, actually.” 

“Then I’m not doing my job properly.” 

Jemma had been close when Fitz had stopped working between her legs, but the small discomfort had been enough to push her orgasm back a little. As she began to roll her hips slowly though, the familiar tingles of pleasure coursed through her midsection and Jemma let out a small gasp of contentment. Looking down at her lover, she found his dark eyes staring back at her in awe, mouth slightly opened around a chorus of gasps. Fitz had never been very vocal in bed, which made each of his gasps and moans all the more attractive to Jemma’s ears. 

“Jemma,” Fitz moaned, pushing the back of his head a little bit further into the pillows. “Jemma, you feel…” 

She made a noise of agreement. “Feels so good,” she agreed, eyes fluttering shut. “Oh, fuck!” 

Fitz couldn’t help but tighten his grip on her hips and thrust back into her, the both of them moaning out loud at the feeling. Jemma pushed a hand right next to Fitz’s head on the bed to get a better angle, and he used the opportunity to catch her mouth in a sweet kiss. The rhythm of their tongues was almost comically slow compared to the quick drag of their bodies against each other, and Jemma muffled a chuckle against Fitz’s lips. 

“What?” he asked eventually, breaking the kiss to nip at her jaw. “What’s— _oh, shit_ , what’s funny?” 

“Nothing. I just love you, that’s all.” 

Fitz let out a hissed breath at the confession, squeezing his eyes shut. Jemma had no time to wonder why exactly he’d reacted this way before he grabbed her by the hips and swapped their positions. The new angle put more pressure on her clit, Fitz’s pelvis rubbing deliciously against her, and Jemma choked back a moan. 

“You can’t say things like this,” Fitz explained, breath short. “You have no idea what it does to me.” 

“I think I have a small idea, actually.” 

As they kissed again, Fitz’s lips sliding against the arch of Jemma’s cupid bow, a small “ _meow_?” followed by the bed dipping besides their entangled bodies made them part. 

“Hephaestus!” 

Fitz’s gaze fell on the unbothered cat, slowly padding towards them on the bed. Jemma couldn’t help but laugh when his whiskers grazed her face, his tiny wet nose coming into contact with her cheek as he sniffed at her. 

“Yeah, she’s happy to see you too,” Fitz groaned as he pulled away from Jemma, mourning the loss of her wet heat as soon as he was kneeling on the bed, “but mummy and daddy are a bit busy at the moment yeah?” 

He tried not to think about how weird it was to grab his cat at this very moment, ignoring the cheeky mewl Hephaestus gave him when he put him on the floor outside of the room and closed the door behind him. When he turned around and looked back at Jemma though, Fitz’s heart made a little twirl in his chest. Her lips were twisted in a grin, legs spread to accommodate his body and skin so deliciously flushed with pleasure. Fitz wasted no time in jumping on her once more, the hollow of her legs welcoming him perfectly. 

“Fitz,” Jemma whispered when he thrust into her steadily, her back arching and the tip of her nipples pressing against his torso, “Fitz, I’m so close.” 

Putting most of his weight on his left hand, Fitz used the balance to sneak a hand between their bodies and pressed two steady fingers against Jemma’s clit. The simple movement earned him a loud gasp, and for a moment Fitz found himself incapable of taking his eyes away from the woman writhing behind him. Her freckles seemed almost darker under the flush of her cheeks, her body glistening with a thin coat of sweat as he gave her so much pleasure it left her breathless on their bed. Never in a million year had he thought he’d get to see Jemma like this anymore, and Fitz wanted to carve the sight behind his eyelids forever. If he was meant to die now, let it be with the memory of the woman he loved coming apart underneath him. 

“Oh, Fitz, yes!” 

It only took a handful of thrusts inside of her coupled with clever movements on her bundle of nerves for Jemma to let go, her walls clenching rhythmically around Fitz as she climaxed. Fitz didn’t have the strength to hold back after that, letting go as soon as she did and covering her body with his. Each roll of his hips as he came undone made Jemma gasp, and for a fleeting moment, Fitz realized they hadn’t bothered with protections. 

“We didn’t use a condom,” he whispered against the side of Jemma’s neck, his entire body feeling too weak to move at the moment. Pressing a kiss at the hollow of her throat, he realized that he could almost count her heartbeat with his lips. 

“I’m on the pill, and I’m clean,” Jemma replied eventually. “But I’ll get a test done anyway, if you want.” 

Fitz didn’t have the strength to reply verbally, nuzzling at her neck instead. Jemma’s legs were still wrapped around him, keeping him inside of her for as long as she could, and her fingers were slowly running through his hair. If Fitz had been capable of purring like a cat, he certainly would have at this very moment. He felt more content than he had in years, and everything felt right in the world once more. 

“I’m gonna fall asleep,” he whispered against her skin, “my legs feel like jello.” 

Jemma chuckled. “Mine, too. Maybe we should sleep for a bit? We have all the time in the world to speak afterwards, anyway.” 

“I like the way you think.” 

They had to part eventually, and Jemma made a quick trip to the bathroom before sliding back in bed, naked as the day she was born. It felt both weird and incredibly familiar to feel Fitz’s eyes as they followed her to the bathroom and back, blushing under the intensity of his gaze. As soon as she was back in bed though, sliding under the cover for warmth —and to curl against her lover with a delighted shiver— Fitz wrapped his arms around her and flushed their bodies together. 

“You know I’m not going anywhere, right?” Jemma whispered against his neck, kissing his adam apple. 

Fitz snorted. “Yeah? Well, I’m not risking anything.” 

Jemma snickered against his chest, eyes closing in their own accord. Soon, they fell asleep tangled together, unaware of anything besides each other. 

*******

The moment Maggie Fitz arrived at her son’s cottage, she realized the house was awfully quiet. She’d use her spare key to open the door, as Leo was very often busy around the house lately —to clean before she arrived, most times— but he hadn’t walked down to greet her. Maggie let out a sigh, sharing a glance with Hephaestus. Since she’d started coming by often enough, Leo seemed to feel a little bit better. It had been a long time since she’d found him in bed sulking, but it seemed like she’d have to today. Shrugging off her coat, Maggie eventually walked up the stairs and towards the bedroom. 

“Alright, time to get out of there and stop sulking,” Maggie exclaimed as she opened the door wide, Hephaestus using the occasion to slide inside the room and run towards the bed. “Come on now!”

The moment her eyes fell on the bed though, Maggie let out a small gasp of surprise. Her son was there, as expected, but the woman curled against his naked torso was certainly a surprise. Both their bodies were entwined and tangled in the sheets, but Maggie didn’t need much to realize that they were both naked as the day they were born. 

“Mum?” Leo mumbled in surprise, arms tightening around the woman in his bed as he looked up at her. The information seemed to take a while to set in his brain but when it did, Maggie saw the absolute terror in her son’s eyes as he realized exactly where he was. She saw his eyes fall on the bedside clock, then back on her, and Maggie would have laughed at his expression if she hadn’t been as surprised as she was at the moment.

It was only then, as he sat up in surprise and horror, that Maggie realized that she knew the face of the other person next to her son in bed. “Is that Jemma?” 

Jemma blinked several times, still half asleep, and seemed to realize where she was and who she was facing all at once, much like Leo. With a little squeal of surprise, she sat up and clutched the covers to her chest, revealing more of Leo’s body in the process. 

“Jemma,” her son groaned as he tried to hide as much of his chest as he could without stealing most of the covers, “if I could avoid ending up naked in front of my mother, I’d be very grateful.” 

Maggie let out a snort. “It’s not like it’s nothing I hadn’t seen before, honey.” 

Despite everything, Jemma chuckled. 

“Mum,” Leo whined, his cheeks turning a delicious shade of pink. “Could you… hmm, could you leave us a moment?” 

Looking at her son, then back at Jemma, Maggie nodded. “I’ll go make some tea downstairs, alright?” 

She let them alone then, walking downstairs to prepare some tea. Her mind went straight back to the scene she’d just left as she got some water to boil. Of all the things she’d expected to see, she hadn’t thought about finding Jemma in her son’s bed just weeks away from her wedding with another man. She’d always loved Jemma like a daughter really, but the situation was more than confusing to her at this point. 

Thankfully for her, Leo and Jemma didn’t take much time walking downstairs and into the kitchen. Maggie bit back a smile when she gazed upon their red faces, the both of them looking like they wished they could be anywhere but in here with her. They looked like they’d just grabbed the first clothes they’d found, which basically consisted in Leo’s workout clothes. Maggie had to admit, their walk of shame was more than a little amusing. 

“You have a hickey in your neck, darling,” Maggie pointed out as she gave Jemma a cup, delighted to see her blush darken. “Now, I feel like you two owe me an explanation. I arrived thinking I’d find my son sulking over his ex-wife, and I found him with said ex-wife in bed.” She glared at Jemma, taking a sip out of her tea, “Aren’t you supposed to get married soon?” 

“She cancelled the wedding, mum!” Fitz snapped. “It’s not like we were doing anything illegal.” 

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Did you now?” she asked Jemma. 

“Yeah, I did. A week ago, actually.” Jemma sighed, putting down her cuppa. “I know… I know how this sounds, Maggie, I really do. And to be fair, this is definitely not how things were supposed to go for sure,” she mentioned at the clothes she wore, that consisted of an old tee-shirt Maggie had seen on Leo several times in the last two weeks and a pair of sweatpants. She was quite certain the shirt smelled of both sweat and sex equally, now. “And that’s definitely not how we planned to handle the entire thing, either. I’d planned on many more discussions, actually.”

Behind her, Leo flushed crimson red, hiding his face behind his cup of tea. Maggie bit back a sigh. There were things she certainly didn’t need to know, and the fact that her son and his ex-wife hadn’t been capable of keeping it in their pants long enough to talk about their delicate situation was one of them. It almost felt like a throwback to a time when they’d been happy and newly-married though, when she’d been close enough to barge in on a few similar intimate situations. She’d never thought she’d had to deal with any of these circumstances again, but it seemed like her son never failed to amaze her after all those years. 

“You do know that you’ve done a lot of good to each other,” Maggie eventually said slowly. “But you’ve also hurt each other pretty badly, too. And I’m just trying to look out for you both.” 

Fitz's face softened a little. “I know, mum. We both do. But we’re also adults, and we can make decisions for ourselves. This thing between us,” he mentioned at Jemma, incapable to hide his smile as he did so “is certainly going to need some serious talks, and ground rules.”

“Especially rules,” Jemma muttered. 

“Especially rules. But for now, we’re just happy to have found each other again.” 

Jemma could barely take her eyes away from Fitz as he talked, as if she was rediscovering this man she’d spent so much time married to. 

Maggie sighed. “Jemma, baby, I’m so happy to see you again, but I’m a little bit confused too. Are you sure this is what you want? You were to be married in a few weeks, and now you’re back on the other side of the world. What about your job? All those opportunities in New York? I don’t mean to play the devil’s advocate here. I’m only looking out for you both, and trying to make sure you’re not making any rash decisions.” 

“I haven’t quit my job,” Jemma assured immediately. “And I’m not planning to. Me breaking off my engagement… it had nothing to do with New York, or the rest of my life there. I just realized that wasn’t that I wanted, that’s all.” 

She shared a look with Fitz, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Maggie was once again thrown back to a time when everyone in the room felt like outsiders whenever her Leo and Jemma looked at each other, surprised to see how quickly they’d found this habit again. 

“I don’t know what the future will hold,” Jemma confessed eventually. “I’ve taken a few weeks off, and it’s probably the first time in three years. I want to enjoy my time here, and I want to make sure this,” she gestured at her ex-husband, “is worth fighting for. Three years is a lot of time, and some things had to change, because we both did.” 

She took a deep breath, staring down at her cuppa. Maggie could see the way her jaw worked as she searched for her next words carefully. 

“But all this time, there has been something missing in my life, and that’s Fitz.” Maggie saw Leo smile at her, carefully entwining their fingers together. “And I want this to work, I want it so bad. The rest can wait, because I know we can work it out. I have faith in us.” 

Maggie looked at her son, then at Jemma, staring at them both for a little longer than necessary. “Alright, alright,” she sighed, “I know you can handle yourselves, and I’ll stop asking, because I trust you both. I just wanted to make sure you are both happy, because you’re my children, and I love you both very much.” 

“We know, mum,” Fitz whispered, taking a step ahead to kiss at her forehead. “And we’re very grateful for you.” 

Behind him, Jemma nodded. “That we are.” 

This time, Maggie’s eyes watered a little bit as she looked at the woman she’d seen grow up, the one she’d always considered a daughter. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much, Jemma.” 

Jemma chewed on her lower lip. “I’ve missed you too, Maggie.” 

Both women fell into each other’s arms then, laughing wetly as they held onto each other tight. In the living-room, Hephaestus mewled softly, stretching on the carpet, and Fitz couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight.

“I think we all deserve a little bit of a break,” he eventually said, wrapping both women in a warm hug. “Real life can wait.” 

Real life could wait indeed, Jemma thought as she squeezed them both a little tighter, closing her eyes against the onslaught of emotions cursing through her heart. For the first time in a long time, she felt home.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again for all those who followed this story, left a comment or kudo as you did and encouraged me over here or twitter. you guys are the best, and I'm so grateful for you all. 
> 
> you can find me on twitter @/keptinonzebridg! xx

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this first chapter! You can find me on twitter @/keptinonzebridg!! xx


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